I'm starting warm up to my language saving enterprise. Maybe enthusiasm is contagious after all? I think what I am dealing here with is not necessarily a problem with the fact that languages are not very neat - what can we expect, after something has been around for so long it has too get a little messy eventually... The problem I have to overcome is my love for neatness and control. I have to overcome my drive to put everything in nicely organized folders. I have to accept a bit of blurriness here and a big yawning gap there and the fact that I may not be able to systematize and understand everything at once, or maybe ever. Just like I may be forced to let some things in my life spin out of control from time to time as I have no chance to keep everything going in the direction I set. The best I can do is work slowly and add, add, add little pieces, constantly hoping that they will all fall into place eventually... Why put a restraining order on everything?
"The aim of science is surely to amass and systematize knowledge" (V. Gordon Childe)
Why does it sound like labelling and reducing? Can it be done differently? Both in life and linguistics?!
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