Re: Which book sounds most compelling?

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:28:41 +1300, Zeborah
<zeborah@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1iy5mt4.scbbcp9txnp3N%zeborah@xxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Not intended to be patronising, and I can't see why it
is: I am accusing you, and others, of being very
knowledgeable about language but (possibly) to a lesser
extent than Brian.

You've got your scope wrong. Your original sentence had
"perhaps" outside of the parenthetical delimited by
commas, thus modifying "this is true", ie "of possibly
being very knowledgeable about language but [if so] to a
lesser extent than Brian". If you wanted "of being very
knowledgeable about language but possibly to a lesser
extent than Brian" then you should have said "and,
perhaps to a lesser extent, this is true..."

In any case I am quite certain that at least two people here
know rather more about some areas of linguistics --
especially theories of syntax! -- than I. You have a BA in
it, and Heather has a PhD.; my formal training consists of a
one-semester introductory course and a one-semester course
in linguistic anthropology.

The former was pretty much your standard Linguistics 101 as
it was in the late 60s. (It was also a bit too elementary
for me, but it's what was available.) We used Gleason, an
excellent text that unfortunately is now terribly dated in
parts. The instructor, Ron Macaulay, was a delightful young
Scotsman who later wrote _The Social Art: Language and Its
Uses_, one of the handful of really good books on
linguistics for the educated layman. The other course was
team-taught by Macaulay and an anthropologist and was
largely based on readings from a large Dell Hymes anthology.

[...]

Brian
.

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