Language Research Group

1Language

1.1A language is a convention

A language is a convention of signs, meanings, and how to interpret those symbols into those meanings. Thus a language has syntax (how it looks) and semantics (what it means). A sign may be visual, aural, tactile, or anything that a human can perceive. Visual signs are seen, such as writings, sign languages, semaphores. Aural signs are heard, such as speech. Tactile signs are touched, such as Braille.

Sign or symbol?

Must a language have meaning?

In the 13th century, "language" means "words, what is said, conversation, talk".¹ The Latin word "lingua" means "tongue".

We associate symbols with meanings.

A language is a means of communication.

A language is a set of mutually agreed symbols.

A language may contain logic.

Is being a language objective or subjective (teleological)? A symbol does not have meaning on its own; someone has to interpret it.

Some animals may have languages.².

A language constructs symbols by computable/finite means.

A language is a convention for encoding/decoding/representing meaning.

What is English? It depends on when. Middle English was English. What people in 1400 call "English" and what people in 2000 call "Middle English" is the same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English

1.2Language preservation

1.2.1How do we interpret old texts if languages shift?

In order to understand an old text, we have to interpret it as its writer did.

1.2.2Preserving language for future generations

If we are to help future generations, we must resist changing our languages. We must resist changing the meaning of existing words.

1.3What is communication?

We use language for communication. What is communication?

"Communicable" means "spreadable".

what³⁴

1.4Limitations of languages

1.4.1A language enables transfer of wit but not of ken?

Language cannot be used to spread knowledge that has to be directly experienced by the senses. It is impossible to describe with language what "red" or "hot" are; they have to be directly experienced. No amount of talking will make someone who has never tasted wine knows what it tastes like.

1.5Meta-languages and second-language acquisition

A language may be rich enough for humans to use to describe the language itself.

We can describe English in English.

An erratum (a document about correcting another document) uses English as meta-language. Such erratum contains meta-statements such as "in pages 123-234, replace each occurrence of 'Foo' with 'Bar'".

Second language acquisition is the usage of a language as a meta-language for describing the target language. For example, an English speaker learning German uses English as a meta-language for describes German.

Should a language be rich enough for us to describe itself?

What about programming languages? Reflection?

For example, we can use English+Java+math as a meta-language for teaching English-speaking Java programmers about Scheme/Haskell.

2Meaning

2.1What is a meaning?

What do we mean by "X means Y"? If words do not have meaning, then what is the "meaning of a word"?

2.2Meaning arises from interpretation; words do not carry meaning

Words do not carry meaning; we interpret words. If words carried meaning, then misunderstanding would be impossible, and people would not have to learn languages.

"Meaning of a word" is meaningless? A word alone does not have meaning. We interpret a word into a meaning depending on context/situation.

2.3How-do vs how-should questions, what are the meanings?

A how-do question is answered with a fact.

A how-should is answered with a justified belief.

How do we cook an egg? Heat it by whatever means: fire, boiling, microwave, etc.

How should we cook an egg? It depends: do we want to preserve nutrition, minimize carcinogens, or make delicacy?

"How should we do X" is "What is the best way for us to do X and why is that the best way".

3Grammar and syntax

3.1What is grammar and syntax?

"Grammar" comes from Greek "grammatike (tekhne)" that means "(art) of letters".⁵ In 1600, "syntax" is "a putting together or in order, arrangement, a grammatical construction".⁶

We limit our analysis to formal languages.

Grammar vs syntax⁷⁸.

3.2A grammar is a convention

A grammar is a convention for representing meanings as symbols. A meaning is abstract, ideal. A symbol is concrete, material, tangible, transmissible, perceptible. A symbol may be a character, a pictogram, a diagram, a syllable, etc.

An ungrammar is a convention for interpreting symbols into meanings.

We represent meanings as shapes that others can perceive and interpret. It just happens that we represent meanings as strings of characters in computers.

3.3Must a grammar concern only strings and trees?

Trees are graphs. Why stop at trees? Why not graphs?

• WP:Graph rewriting
• 2015 slides "Graph grammars" pdf
• 1993 article "A Graph Parsing Algorithm and Implementation" pdf
• 1990 article "A Graph Parsing Algorithm" paywall

What are graph grammars?⁹¹⁰

3.4How do we model/specify grammar?

Wikipedia?¹¹¹²

There are several ways.

Chomsky 1956 [1] phrase-structure grammar: non-terminals, terminals, and rules. See also semi-Thue system, string rewriting system, Post rewriting system.

Backus-Naur Form "is a notation technique for context-free grammars"¹³.

3.5Does attribute grammar indeed specify the semantics of the language?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_grammar

3.6How should we specify grammars?

4Understanding

4.1What is understanding?

To understand X is to construct an internal predictive model of X?

4.2Hypothesis: an organ that understands causality will understand language

5Logic, truth

What is truth? Truth is what is true.

What is true? "True" is real, factual, in line with reality.

An open formula is a formula that has one or more free variables.¹⁴

The truth of an open formula may depend on the substitution of the free variables.

Some formulas are true or false due to their form, even though they contain free variables. For example: in classical logic, \( p \wedge (p \to q) \to q \) is true regardless of what \(p\) and \(q\) are. Another example: in classical logic, then \( p \wedge \neg p \) is false regardless of what \(p\) is.

If a formula's truth can be proven by virtue of its form alone, then it is true in all interpretations?

Classical logic assumes two things: material implication and the law of excluded middle.

6Designing languages

6.1What can language pedagogy teach us about programming language design and pedagogy?

How do we learn languages?

How do we learn second languages?

Spaced repetition, constant usage, total immersion.

Gegg 1995 [2] (emphasis ours): "The key difference between experts and novices is not the size of their memory span, but rather their ability to chunk information together into meaningful units. Schemata provide a method of organizing meaningful information about complex domains. Experts have more and better problem schemata than novices. Novice programmers tend to categorize problems based on surface syntax-based features of the problem statement, while experts categorized problems with respect to a more abstract hierarchical organization of algorithms […]."

What can we learn from Loglan, Lojban, Esperanto, etc?

6.2What is a good language?

A good language is simple, consistent, predictable.

6.3Minimizing expected energy required to communicate

More-often-used words are shorter to minimize the expected energy required to communicate.

Often-used words are short. Seldom-used words are long.

Likely words are short. Unlikely words are long.

"Expected" means that the language evolves or is designed with certain use-cases in mind. Hypothesis: Natural languages evolved to maximize human survival.

7History

7.1How did the first translator translate?

8Abortion debates are futile communication failures

<2018-09-15>

TLDR: Before you debate abortion, make sure everyone has the same definition of the words you're going to use.

8.1The problem with abortion debates

Abortion debate is all emotion and no thinking. Nothing will ever come out of it. There is no real discussion. The participants don't even agree on the meaning of the words they use (human, fetus, life, species, murder). It is communication failure. It is religious debate.

Everyone gives different meanings to the same word. Everyone assumes everyone else has the same definitions. There is only an illusion of communication. There is no real progress.

New York Times has some opinion about language in abortion debates.

8.2Abortion debate is battle between thinkers and feelers

After seeing Abortion ProCon.org, I realize that the debate is just a battle between thinkers and feelers. Generally, thinkers are pro-abortion and feelers are anti-abortion.

After browsing around, I realize that gun control, euthanasia, death penalty, and other moral issues are just a giant battle between thinkers and feelers.

8.3Ubiquitous problem: not defining what a human is

What is a human? We think we know what a human is, but when we want to say it, we find out we can't. Why? Is our language limited? Is "human" an ill-defined concept?

We don't know what a human is, we don't know what life is, but we dare to debate the sanctity of the life of a human?

People who debate abortion but can't define human are wasting time. They don't know what they're talking about.

8.4Ubiquitous fallacy: binarizing the continuum

Concepts such as hot, tall, big are not binary. They are continuums.

Life is not binary. It is a continuum. We are more alive when we wake up. We are less alive when we sleep. We are even less alive when we die.

Being human is a continuum.

Truth is a continuum. We reason probabilistically.

Every adjective suffers from the sorites paradox.

8.5Why do we care what others do?

We care about what others do only as far as how they may harm us.

We don't care when someone harms himself.

We care when someone harms others, but only if he may harm us.

We care when someone kills people because we fear he may kill us next, not because we care about the people he killed.

We care when someone kills his children because we fear he may kill our children next, not because we care about the children he killed.

Why do we care when a pregnant woman aborts her fetus?

We care when a woman aborts her fetus because we want to impose our morality on others, not because we care about the fetus. If we cared about the fetus, we would help the mother raise the fetus, help her give birth, and then adopt the baby.

8.6Nature-defying El Salvador abortion law

El Salvador abortion law ignores nature. It imprisons people unnecessarily.

8.7Catching fallacies in action

8.7.1Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager has a video about abortion.

What he gets right:

• Right: "When challenged with this argument, people usually change the subject to the rights of the mother."
  • The right response is to ask the claimant to define the words human, species, life, fetus, etc. There is no need to digress to mother rights in order to point out the problems with the argument.

What he gets wrong:

• Mixing unrelated concepts in a loaded question: "Does the human fetus have any value and any rights?"
  • "Value" is a moral concept. "Rights" is a legal concept. The two don't always coincide. Also, he hadn't defined what a "human" is.
• Misuse of language: "A living being doesn't have to be a person in order to have intrinsic moral value and rights."
  • The term "intrinsic rights" is an oxymoron. Your rights are the things laws give you. They don't come with you.
• Wrong: "Either a human fetus has worth or it doesn't."
  • This is the fallacy of binarizing the continuum.
• Loaded question: "Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has any right to live?"
  • The question should have been: "Why does anyone at all get to determine whether any being has any right to live?"
    • That question suggests antinatalism. Why do we force babies to come into being?

9Abuse of languages

"Reality shows" are anything but real.

"Democratic republics" are anything but democratic.

10References

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1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/language↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language↩

3. https://www.etymonline.com/word/communication↩

4. https://www.etymonline.com/word/communicate↩

5. https://www.etymonline.com/word/grammar↩

6. https://www.etymonline.com/word/syntax↩

7. https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/3484/whats-the-difference-between-syntax-and-grammar↩

8. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/29577/whats-the-difference-between-grammar-and-syntax↩

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_rewriting↩

10. https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/39393/what-are-graph-grammars↩

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar↩

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar↩

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form↩

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_formula↩