me: And since we're in an argumentative mood,...
amemeba: Uh, jheem, is disagreeing argumentative?
No, amemeba, but argumentative can mean quarrelsome or contentious. In this case, "we" meant "I". It was more of a rhetorical florish. You can ignore the statement. (I love nothing better than a good argument.)
ideas came first
This is an axiom, yes? It has not been demonstrated. Nor can it. Since ideas cannot get from one noggin to the other without language. There are some language-like gestures (twirling fingers to whirling dogs), but they seem to me more like stimulus-response rather than language / idea-transferance. It's a a large chasm between mechanics of rut/estrus and the poetry of courtly love.
"audacious"
Ah, signing "audacious". (Slaps forehead with open palm.) I can be so thick sometimes. Sorry about that. You'd be best asking a fluent ASler not me. But what is nuance in a spoken language? Or perhaps, just in English? Is nuance part of the default meaning of a word like "audacious" or is part of how two speakers use a word in a discourse? Nuance, to me, has something more to do with the performer (speaker, signer) and the audience (hearer, watcher) than with the materiality of the text (utterance, signage). Unless of course nuance exists a priori in the ideas behind the words (signs). Nuance is added to the utterance suprasegmentally (prosodically, like stress) to change the meaning of the message. Can nuance change the ideas in the speaker's head or just in the hearer's?
