Missing: one word

[triskellian]

I require a word which means "causes or is caused by". I suspect the English language does not possess such a word. This is a great trial to me in the process of writing an essay about a bunch of stuff for which we don't know which direction causation operates. Mostly I'm explicitly stating the causal ambiguity, and sometimes I say things like "is related to", but it's all very annoying.

(Essays continuing after official deadline because I was ill last week and have an extension. I fully expect to be writing essays forever, and never to reach Christmas.)

Edited to add: essay is finished :-) I will read through tomorrow to fix the inevitable bits where it doesn't make sense, but other than that: one down, one to go!

Comments

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Closest I can get is 'is correlated with', but that doesn't mean at all the same thing, because it also allows for an option C that causes both things.

Dratted English language :)

[triskellian]

And correlated, to me, implies that someone has done a bunch of stats and Officially Decreed (tm) that there is a correlation, and since this is all pulling-ideas-out-of-our-heads stuff (development of language in the human species), there aren't really any stats to do.

Dratted indeed :-)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

...and that's even before we get to things which are correlated at random.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

You could use "co-occurs with", but that doesn't imply causality, so I don't suppose it helps. I can't think of any word that suggests a causal relationship between two things without specifying the direction, to be honest!

[triskellian]

Pirates! Global warming! :-)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better now.

(Can't help with the word thing)

[triskellian]

Yes, much - thanks! It's completely thrown out my plans to prepare for Christmas, though. I needed that weekend for shopping. Still, Amazon to the rescue (I hope).

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I can has sentence pls?
Although I suspect what you really need is to be writing in (by/with/from) Latin.

[triskellian]

There are several, which is part of why it's a problem - if it was just one instance I wouldn't mind saying something like "causes or is caused by". Ummm... example: "the language we use is linked with the type of language our brains are able to produce and process, although whether the changes in the brain enabled the language or the need for language caused the changes in the brain is still very much a matter of debate".

It's "linked with" in that sentence that is the bit I want to replace, although actually it's fine there, because in that case I do need to make explicit that I know we don't know which way round it is; there are other cases when I don't need to say it over and over again, but the absence of a word to precisely replace the concept means I feel like I'm belabouring the point.

(No! Please don't make me write in Latin! I'm having a hard enough time already this semester producing intelligent and coherent things to say without having to write them in a language I don't know! ;-)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

It's a bit Rumsfeld, isn't it - known knowns and known unknowns...
How Sapir-Whorf is this section? *has come back from office party, and is fuzzy with words*
Also, I know 0 Latin, so you're probably better off than me anyway....
Correlate, or versions thereof?

[triskellian]

It's a bit Rumsfeld, isn't it - known knowns and known unknowns...
Oh yes, very.

How Sapir-Whorf is this section?
Not at all - it's psycholinguistics, so practically science ;-) Sapir-Whorf, IIRC, is more sociolinguistics.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Ah, it sounds all S-W-y to me, but then I'm not very clever.
I can't think of anything other than "correlate". I ask the DPhil in the house, and he will think about it. I may come up with something in sleep.

[triskellian]

Sapir-Whorf is more on the individual level, isn't it? How the languages I speak shape my understanding of the world? This is at the evolutionary, pre-language stage: whether the species as a whole developed in a language-wards direction and then went "Oh! Now we can speak!", or whether the way we were living required us to be able to communicate, so our brains evolved to allow it.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

From what I recall (and it was 7-odd years ago), SW = language shapes the way I see and understand my world, yes - but that also implies a collective/national-stroke-linguistic-unit view; as well as the possibility that the way I view my world shapes the language I speak.
Though yes, this sounds more like Locke &c to me.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Well it isn't one word, but "is causally related to" would be what I'd go for. I'd then open my essay with a definition of what I meant by it, to avoid confusion.

[triskellian]

Yep, I've used something a bit like that in one place, but I don't want to use the same phrase too often for stylistic reasons.

[metame.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how you were getting on, sorry it isn't more finished - damn illnesses.

Umm, "interdependent" or possibly "codependent"? Though they sort of imply not havong one without the other.

"causatively linked" is true, but not exactly elegant.

"connected" is maybe a bit weak but would make a change from "linked".

[triskellian]

It's nearly finished - getting there. I was going to go out and have fun this evening, but I'm on a bit of a roll, for a change, so I thought I'd better stay in and hit this one on the head for good.

"Interdependent" is great, thank you - the implication is actually an appropriate one.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I, like Humpty, would use whatever word I damn well liked, and expect them to understand what I meant by it. In this case, I'd probably chose to use moist. But then I almost always do.

[triskellian]

D'you want to write my dissertation for me? That sounds entertaining ;-)

[mkononi.livejournal.com]

If you know there's a word in a foreign language (probably french) then why not use that? Is there a bonus marks in linguistics essays for "necessary exposition of concept through a foreign tongue"

[triskellian]

Hey! It's you! I assumed this account would go the way of the last, and you'd show up again in two years with a new account and a new guessing game ;-)

Nah, I don't know of a word for it in another language. Which isn't really surprising, since the only other language I know more than about ten words in is French, and I've forgotten most of that. Still, I've finished the damned thing now, so presumably I managed to come up with something!