Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 23:02:18 -0500

From: "Bethany K. Dumas" dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTK.EDU

Subject: Enough! (this version is minus the typos)



My apologies for the typos in the previous version of this post -- it

should have read:



On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, David W. Pass wrote:



Of course, stating that "language is language" does not claim that

language is unchanging. I can['t imagine where you got that idea

from the messages that were posted.





The statement may not claim it; however, it implies it. The statement

"language is language" implies a continous equivilence. If the implication

is as it seems, the language yesterday equals language today which equals

language tomorrow; thus, the statement seems to imply that language is

unchanging.



I can no longer remain silent. David Pass's statement above is one of the

silliest statements I have ever seen about language. To say that "language

is language" implies that language has inherent characteristics qua

language that remain true -- it does not imply anything whatsoever about

language being static. It seems to me that only someone who does not know

what language is would read an implication of stasis into the statement.



Let's get back to talking about language, okay?



Bethany



But I just noticed that David apparently plans to post again, so perhaps

I'll be restating this soon; he concluded:



Once again (and I hope for the penultimate time) I was only ...