On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 11:20:19 +0200, cookfire cookfire@softhome.net wrote:
If topo in Italian means both mouse and rat. Then it should be a word with two definitions. One will translate into mouse, the other will translate into rat.
Just because a word refers to multiple objects doesn't mean it has multiple definitions.
To give an exaggerated example, it is like saying that the English word "bird" has over 9000 definitions because there are over 9000 kinds of birds and "bird" refers to them all.
Less extremely, the word "dolphin" in everyday English[1] refers indiscriminately to dolphins that live in the ocean, dolphins that live in rivers, and (for some people) porpoises; however, there are languages that distinguish them: in Latin for example they are "delphinus", "platanista", and "thursio" respectively[2], and I wouldn't be surprised if other languages did similarly.
English has lots of words like these, that get defined nonspecifically as "a member of taxonomic group X or Y".
*Muke! [1] Excepting in technical language, or language trying to be specific. In such cases even languages that don't ordinarily differentiate rat/mouse can find ways to be specific. [2] It's a really obscure example, I know, but it's the only one I'm familiar with offhand, from writing about dolphins in Latin. Pliny, who describes the animals, does not give them as kinds of dolphins, though he does say the _thursio_ "delphinorum similitudinem habent" (has the dolphins' likeness), and the _platanista_ is "rostro delphini et cauda" ([possessed] of a dolphin's muzzle and tail).