Lewis Carroll spoofed logic, semantics, and language in Alice with

Lewis Carroll spoofed logic, semantics, and language in Alice with

Lewis Carroll spoofed logic, semantics, and language in <i>Alice</i> with constructions such as (paraphrased): must I mean what I say when I say what I mean, to which the response was I see what I eat isn't the same as I eat what I see. Chomsky cited "time flies like an arrow" and "fruit flies like bananas". My question is, are such constructions possible in all languages (presumably the above examples are not always directly translatable) especially non-Indo-European ones and, if not, what are the philosophical/linguistic ramifications of this? Does it just boil down to word play in any given language or are there linguistic universals at play? I once read a bilingual Chinese/English American (!) philosopher claiming that Chinese was more conducive to essaying logical analysis than English and, as far as I know, all writing about linguistic philosophy has been in 'Western' languages, usually English. Is this significant? Do individual languages or language families rather than language itself colour our perception of the world?

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