in French, you say “J’ai soif” or “J’ai faim” (->”I have thirst/hunger”),

This is actually one of the things in French that I have a hard time with. You also say “Je suis fatigue”. I suspect that this is because there isn’t a convention for turning a noun into an adjective as there is in English.

English also uses forms of “to have” and “to be” as auxiliary verbs for tense formation. Usually “have” for past tense “I have studied french” and “be” for future tenses “I will be studying french” and some tenses use both, “I have been studying french” I don’t actually know the English name for this but it is a tense that indicates past action continuing into the present.

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JimFive

- in French, you say “J’ai soif” or “J’ai faim” (->”I have thirst/hunger”), while in English you d say “Iam thirsty/hungry”. I dont think the difference is that big, though.

- Nowadays you dont say “J’étudie”, but directly “Je suis étudiant” (-> “I am student”). Because studies have got longer and longer, so now its really an important stage of one’s life (and therefore you have an identity as a student… especially when it comes to train fares or movie tickets ). And you still say “Je suis médecin” or “Je suis architecte” (”I am physician/architect”). I’d guess not having an article in front of the noun denotes that we dont put so much emphasis on the social position as an identity, but I am not linguist…

- We have two auxiliary verbs : “être” et “avoir” (be/have). You use “être” for the passé composé of some verbs. Passé composé is a more or less intermediary tense in value between English preterit and present perfect, with the grammatical construct of the present perfect. These verbs are called “verbes d’état” (ie verbs that denote a state).

- On the other hand, we dont have the compound present (BE + ING), we use the simple present for the same value…

your understanding of French is correct, and the remark hits the spot Thanks for pointing it out

I didnt want to start a discussion on eprime, but if the arguments provided are not below this quality, I guess its alright. And honestly, I should have read more attentively the paper, because indeed it presents as many flaws itself as it highlights in e-prime… So point taken here Which doesnt answer my question about “sgeno”, or about what people think of Levy Bruhl by this neck of the woods…

RE: F-Prime

My limited understanding of French leads me to believe that at least one class of statement that E-Prime is concerned with doesn’t occur in French. In English, one might say “I am a student”, but in French one would say “J’etudie” not “Je suis un etudiant”. So, at least in that case, there is no need to modify French. (Please feel free to correct my impressions of French, or, indeed, my spelling and grammar)

RE: the objections document:
My off the cuff rebuttal
10. More choice is not necessarily better. See: “The Paradox of Choice” by Barry Schwartz. Also note that the constraints required to write a Shakespearean sonnet lead to more inventiveness by the writer.

9. It seems that the author of the objections is using the term “general semantics” to mean more than is indicated. Isn’t any semantic practice part of “general semantics”.

8. Really, “He is a professor” and that is all, period, full stop, end of story?

7. Sometimes it is easier to dump out the container than to try and separate the salt from the sugar.

6. “The silly practice of E-prime continues” to what? A better formulation of the original sentence (”E-Prime is silly”) might be “I consider the practice of E-Prime silly.” And this displays the usefulness of E-Prime. In the first, silly is presented as an inherent basic fact of E-Prime, while in the second it is a judgement of the speaker and needs to be supported.

5,4,1. E-prime is a “rule of thumb” for eliminating the confusion and force of identity and predication statements. The fact that the goal is more subtle than E-prime takes in to account is irrelevant.

3,2 Pure speculation, “May have drawbacks” or it May not.

Overall: If I were a composition teacher I would probably give a couple of assignments in E-prime just to challenge my students. It is much easier to say “Do not use any form of the verb ‘to be’” than it is to say don’t use identity or predication.

Giuli, Jason, jhereg, jimfive, and all others whom I may be forgetting, when you are back from the wild… please dont forget my little lonely comment…

thanks, and what language is the word “sgeno” ?

Btw, sorry for not writing in e-prime, but I prefer general semantics…:-p see “10 objections to e-primitive”

http://learn-gs.org/library/etc/49-2-french.pdf

please dont discuss too much that last bit about e-prime, i dont want to start a troll here… :-p I am french anyway, so I would be more intereested in “F-prime” if there were such a thing… Our language has such a strong Latin & greek basis that it s even more categorical than English whihc is a lot more imaged. A simple example would be plant names : “Lapsana” becomes “Lampsane” for us and “Nipplewort” for you, “Marrubium” -> “Marrube” vs “Horseshoe”… But the Latin names are also imaged, like “Trifolium” which means “three-leaved” (clover in English, and trèfle in French)

Jason, in a brief post about “The Ten subsersive comandments” - at http://anthropik.com/2005/03/so-let-it-be-written/ -
you mention a paper you have written : “Asceticism as Political Resistance in Roman Judea, 6–66 CE,” [PDF].
In the post here, you also use one of your papers as reference :

Godesky, J.
2000. “War and Society.�? Published online: http://media.anthropik.com/pdf/godesky2000.pdf

Could you give a link to these papers ? It seems impossible to access them through the blog engine, in its current state of rusting…

You can also feel free to mail me the papers if you want - the system should have stored my email.

Subsidiary question : have you read Levy-Bruhl’s work ? Then what is your opinion about his work ? He is the father of modern French ethnography, if I am right, and wrote important essays about primitive thought.

No.

Farming will always persist in pockets. Foragers will only be allowed where soils are too poor to sustain farming.

Whenever soils rebuild, the nearest agricultural holdouts will colonise and use them up.

One thing though, about hunger induced infertility, it fails as soon as they start producing food

True and not true. Hungry people don’t become farmers. Being a farmer requires that you set aside a significant amount of food to be planted at a later date. Jason argues that agriculture will be impossible due to a combination of degraded soils and climate variability. I’m not completely convinced, but the argument is there.

Developing agriculture seems to me to require a certain amount of coincidence of opportunity. You need to have a sufficient surplus of food for enough years to allow for sendentism(*) to become established, enough warning of a decrease in supply of that food to allow for a transition to planting your own, and an environment that allows you to grow more than enough food for your group.

(*)The sendentism requirement is due to it being easier to just go find food somewhere else than to plant food here. The only reason to plant food here is because you want to stay here and the only reason to want to stay here is because you have created a bunch of stuff that is too annoying to move. It is important to note that even horticultural tribes that rely extensively on planted food move every 10-20 years or so.

a)being a completly asocial type, I know I won’t survive.

I feel the same way about myself. I probably won’t survive, but I hope my children do.

b)I believe the collapse will be much slower then the guys here predict, which will allow the gobling up of remaining biodiversity …untill all earth looks like mesopoamia, kalahari or a bleached greek island

Be cheered to know that even now, hunter gatherers live in the Kalahari.

c)This state will persist as long as there are humans, because whenever soils rebuild, farming will return.

I actual think this is less likely. By the time soils rebuild the remaining people will have become accustomed to a nomadic lifestyle. Until the aforementioned requirements converge agriculture won’t come into existance. And, without oil and ore it will remain limited in scope (near flood plains for example).

I know that there are natural methods of contraception other than the vatican roulette, I would be interested in learning about them.

One thing though, about hunger induced infertility, it fails as soon as they start producing food (because they can control suply). and they will start producing food as soon as it becomes possible, because if we have this proclivity to see things as tools, whether they be a stick, a rock, or a sound, we will always come up with the idea that a plant is also a potential tool.and down the slippery slope we go.

So sooner or later you have to rely on the more conscious/controlled options and these only last untill someone changes their mind. After reading what I have read here and on other related pages, I think that we will always oscilate from HG to horticulture to farming and back.

I actually think i am more pessimistic than the guys here.

a)being a completly asocial type, I know I won’t survive.

b)I believe the collapse will be much slower then the guys here predict, which will allow the gobling up of remaining biodiversity (they ar’e now converting jungle into biofuels. at a push, with slash&burn they will convert the rest to food, leaving a dustbowl behind)untill all earth looks like mesopoamia, kalahari or a bleached greek island

c)This state will persist as long as there are humans, because whenever soils rebuild, farming will return.

The primary mechanism for controlling population growth is decreased fertility rates. There are several aspects of this decreased fertility. First, when food is scarce natural fertility declines. Secondly, in a nomadic and egalitarian society a woman’s control over reproduction (via, contraception/abortion as well as sexual availability) leads to more time between children as it is very difficult to take care of multiple young children at one time. (I believe the !Kung averaged 5+ years between children). In addition, acceptance of abortion/infanticide also lead to a controlled population.

A slight increase in infant mortality due to lack of modern medicine is possible, primarily among those children that are seriously premature or with congenital defects that require surgery.

It is unlikely that lack of food or modern medical care would cause a marked increase in mortality rates among any portion of the population.

None of these mechanisms would be viewed as particularly traumatic by the society in which they are practiced.
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JimFive