Rob, (01)
I never said, thought, or imagined anything of the sort: (02)
RF> But you may genuinely think nothing new can be said because
> words are old, so I'll just quickly mention, in a very practical
> way directly relevant to language, why using old words need not
> limit you to old generalizations. (03)
I have always emphasized the open-ended nature of language,
the use of metaphor and metonymy for extending words, and the
fact that the senses of words are constantly evolving. See,
for example, my paper on the challenge of knowledge soup: (04)
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/challenge.pdf (05)
The bulk of the vocabulary we use (even in these email messages) is
based on roots that were used with related meanings by our stone-age
ancestors. But we manage to express a lot of new generalizations
with the old word stock. (06)
John (07)
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