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January 5, 1932

 

Our search for the perfect cat quotation takes us to Umberto Eco's treatise--The Search for the Perfect Language (1995). Since Umberto Eco was born on January 5, 1932, today we will quote his example of the difference between the purely analytical (which I think means relying on books) and the extra-linguistic. "'A tiger is a feline animal' would be analytical, so uniquely depending on our rigorously organized dictionary competence (which is exclusively linguistic) while 'tigers are man-eaters' would depend on our extra-linguistical world knowledge."

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