The Thought Occurs

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Who’s Afraid Of Benjamin Lee Whorf?

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 569):
Whorf (1956) distinguished between overt and covert categories and pointed out that covert categories were often also “cryptotypes” — categories whose meanings were complex and difficult to access. Many aspects of clause grammar, and of the grammar of clause complexes, are essentially cryptotypic.