User:Dreftymac/Docs/ArticleNotes Language

Overview: fundamental elements of language

The human construct called "Language" can be said to consist of three primary components:

structure;
substitution; and
valence

_x_ is a _y_ _z_. <-- structure

Min is a strong [dog|cat|ox|horse]. <-- substitution
_x_ = Min
_y_ = strong
_z_ = choose one of [dog or cat or ox or horse]

Min is a [weak|neutral|strong|invincible] horse <-- valence

_y_ = valence spectrum of 'strength'

Logically speaking, [proponent vs opponent] is a valence spectrum whose individual interpretations are subject to little more than language training and emotional reaction. There is no general basis to conclude that claims of one 'side' are any more logically consistent than the 'other' (this can be proved mathematically).

NLP and Sapir Whorf

John Grinder, a founder of NLP, was a linguistics professor who perhaps unconsciously combined the ideas of Chomsky with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. A seminal NLP insight came from a challenge he gave to his students: coin a neologism to describe an idea for which you have no words. Student Robert Dilts gave an example by coining a word for the way people stare into space when they are thinking, and for the different directions they stare. These new words enabled users to describe patterns in the ways people stare into space, which led directly to NLP results — as notable a validation of the weak hypothesis as one could ask.

Lojban example

In Lojban, the relation is called a selbri and the variables sumti. We call the whole sentence a bridi. Linguists and logicians call the sentences "predicate relationships", the variables "arguments" and the relations "predicates" or "predicate relations".

Lojban has an unambiguous grammar (proven by computer analysis of a formal grammar with YACC), pronunciation, and morphology (word forms). The person who reads or hears a Lojban sentence is never in doubt as to what words it contains or what roles they play in the sentence. Lojban has no words that sound alike but have different meanings (like "herd" and "heard"), that have multiple unrelated meanings ("set"), or that differ only in punctuation but not in sound (like the abominable "its" and "it's"). There is never any doubt about where words begin and end ("cargo shipment" can be heard as 2, 3, or 4 words). The function of each word is clear; there is nothing like the English "Time flies like an arrow.", in which any of the first three words could be the verb. Precision in no way confines the meaning of a Lojban sentence. It is possible to speak nonsense, to tell a lie, or to be misunderstood. You can be very specific, or you can be intentionally vague. Your hearer may not understand what you meant, but will always understand what you said.