Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 18

= February 18 =

paradigmatic
What does paradigmatic mean in the following sentence (found in a book): "Self-psychology, which adheres to a hermeneutic point of view, in particular, Kohut’s concept of empathy as vicarious introspection, is paradigmatic of this perspective." In this sentence, this perspective refers to the intrapersonal or intrapsychic perspective. Lova Falk    talk   14:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I would interpret it as "Self-psychology ... is a typical example of this perspective", perhaps incorrectly, since I'm not a native speaker. Iblardi (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Neither am I, a native speaker, that is. I guess you are right but I would like to see it confirmed. I get crazy when the dictionary says: paradigmatic = "of or pertaining to a paradigm". Self-psychology ... is of or pertaining to a paradigm of this perspective - ???  Lova Falk     talk   16:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There are some uses (such as in the paper "The Prostitute: Paradigmatic Woman", which is semi-famous in certain scholarly circles) where the word "paradigmatic" has a very specific meaning, but in some other uses it seems to be mostly a pretentious jargon equivalent to "typical" or "characteristic"... AnonMoos (talk) 20:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that "this perspective" doesn't refer to the "hermeneutic point of view" just mentioned? Also, "typical" and "characteristic" work for "paradigmatic" in this case, in my opinion, but I think maybe better would be "illustrative".  -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

A particular style of roman numerals
Our articles on Gloriette and Roman numerals both describe a particular style of roman numerals where 500 is denoted by I) instead of the current D; and 1000 is denoted by CI) instead of the current M – in both of these cases ) represents a mirrored letter C. On the images of inscriptions shown there (File:Glo 029bsm.jpg and File:Westerkerk MDCXXX.jpg), you can see that the C part of the numeral CI) looks the same as the numeral C that represents 100. But wouldn't this cause an ambiguity where the number 400 and 1000, currently written as CD and M respectively, would be written the same way in that notation: as CI) ? You could guess that subtractive notation was not at that time applied except possibly at the one's position, but File:Roman numerals Bungus 1584-1585.png, a manuscript form the 16th century, gives evidence of the contrary, showing how 9000 is written as CI) CCI)). Are there examples that show how 400 was represented in this style? &#x2013; b_jonas 21:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Could it be that subtraction was used for 9 (ix, xc, cm) but not for 4 (iiii, xxxx, cccc)? It occurs to me that I've often seen iiii and xxxx in matter quoted from medieval sources, but rarely if ever viiii or lxxxx. —Tamfang (talk) 08:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Possible. I don't find much evidence either for or against that in our articles or pictures.  There's the IIII on clocks section of course, but it's hard to tell whether that section implies that 4 was normally written as IV everywhere else apart from clocks.  &#x2013; b_jonas 09:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)