Markup View

Author: lakingsif

Jun 18th 2014 at 12:54:15 AM

^^ that paragraph, I think, is trying to define the connection between the way that when a word is processed you picture it's subject, if not abstract, most of the time. To understand the word "elephant", you need to be able to picture an elephant (not having seen one, because a blind person can have one described to them, like in that Bible story). With other languages, though, when learning one the student is more likely to relate the foreign word with the word in their mother tongue before they become proficient. Also, the action "think of elephants" is processed before any additional directions, like quickly, slowly, tomorrow, or "do not"; but more so in men (the difference in processing times is shorter in women, beginning at the same time, not because they begin to process later).

Now, I know of no language in which that is a viable sentence structure. I do know of several in which you can place the subject before the action if you really want, and maybe two where you must. They do this in different ways. In languages where you can but don't need to place the subject first, they just don't. In languages where you must, they would say, instead, "think, do not. X (think of)" as two sentences or "think, do not, of X" where the passive voice is used and 'think' is made the subject (yeah, just go with it).