Richard W wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 5:24 am
There's a lot of overlap in Bradn's division, which I fear makes for problems in comparing languages.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct. A one-line definition can’t possibly hope to be comprehensive, especially when the verbs have large overlap in the first place. (And
especially when written quickly at 2am!)
But I think you’re missing the point a bit. I’m not hugely interested in the precise details of the definitions: just the broad strokes of how other languages generally express the notion of ‘speaking’. If I get interested in the little details, I can always look them up myself afterwards.
I think 'tell' focuses on the message, rather than needing a recipient, as in Tell the truth!
This sentence is an odd one, actually. In almost all other situations,
tell requires an object, which is a recipient:
tell me the truth. I’m not entirely sure precisely where the recipient can be omitted, but I’m inclined to treat
tell the truth as a fixed expression. (It sounds less acceptable with other nouns:
Tell ?(us) the story!.)
Critically, 'say' needs an object of the thing said, though it can be expressed as indirectly as, "As I was saying, he's perfectly capable of putting two and two together and making five."
Yes, this is the critical point, which I didn’t emphasise enough.
There seems to be a restriction on the use of 'speak' to convey what is said. Speak the news! seems OK, but not Speak that the Devil is bad.
Speak the news sounds
very weird and archaic to me, if not totally unacceptable. But
speak the truth sounds much better (though quite formal). I’m not sure precisely what the restriction is.
I think that, in the modern spoken language, we can say that
speak is canonically intransitive, except in the special case of languages (
I can speak English).
How are we variously excluding sing, chant, utter, chat and recount?
Simply because their semantic range is much narrower and they’re far less frequent.
Am I being pedantic to ask how 'talking to plants' is covered?
OK, change ‘people’ to ‘entities’ in my definition.