The usual answer in generative linguistics (to which I subscribe, though
generally on the categorial grammar side) is that all languages enable you to
express anything you need to, though the constructions will be different, and
not equally brief/parsimonious. I know there is some recent work more adamantly
denying that, but that kind of denial was the case in the past, going back
before Sapir or Whorf. Examples include cultures with languages that don't
grammaticize counting beyond 1, 2, and many, etc. The key point often is
"grammaticizing", i.e., putting these notions either into the syntax or the
morphology of the language. In this sense, the case is often argued (and
rightfully, I think) that English does not have a future tense grammatically,
but of course English has a notion of futurity which one can express in other
tense/aspect ways, including the use of adverbial clauses. (01)
Semantically, the strong hypothesis is that anyone who speaks any natural
language can express anything that any other natural language speaker can
express, whatever the language. For ontology purposes, of course, this is what
we might think, since a way to refer to something in the real world should
logically be expressible in any language. If you have no notion of a desert in
your experience or in your language, when you encounter a desert, you can
perceive and think about it, and my strong guess is that you will be able to
talk about it in your language, mainly because human language acts as a
mechanism to enable reference to the real world. And thought precedes language,
so you can think anything any other human is capable of thinking (barring
developmental problems or acute brain insults), though you may have to pause at
how to express the thought, or when the mental language facility falters, be
unable to (Pat's experience). I.e., it seems Pat was able to think about the
world in much the same way, but not express those thoughts in language. (02)
Thanks,
Leo (03)
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Patrick Cassidy
>Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 5:13 PM
>To: '[ontolog-forum] '
>Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
>
>PatH,
> That is one truly fascinating (unique?) story, for which many thanks.
> I am curious as to whether, in such a condition, one could still use
>(interpret or produce) formal meaningful symbols, as in an ontology or
>semantic model of some kind. If you have not yet had occasion to test that
>possibility, and if that condition should recur, I hope you will be able to
>test that question in some way. Although I have read that sign language
>(ASL, anyway) uses the same parts of the brain as spoken language, I do not
>recall whether more formal logical representations of meanings also use the
>same paths. It will be at least interesting, and perhaps useful to get
>some data on that.
> In any case, as to whether one's language use *influences* the way one
>thinks, I would imagine it would, as would just about everything else one
>does with the brain and the body. But count me among the skeptics as to
>whether one is actually *constrained* by language. At least for languages
>as expressive as English or other European languages, one should be able to
>express any idea. Perhaps in environments (e.g., primitive cultures lacking
>detailed numbers, and instruments that extend the senses, as well as devices
>that clarify the difference between animate and inanimate) lacking in
>certain kinds of sensual stimuli there may in fact be a few primitive
>concepts lacking that exist in English; in such a case there may be
>difficulty expressing ideas dependent on those particular semantic
>primitives. But I suspect that English has all of the semantic primitives
>represented in any other language. There is a certain catch-22 in saying
>that there are ideas that cannot be expressed in English; if one wants to
>describe that idea, how can one do it in English, if one can't do it in
>English? If one can't describe the idea in English, how can one convey the
>intended meaning to us monoglots, to convince us there is such an idea?
>
>PatC
>
>Patrick Cassidy
>MICRA Inc.
>cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>908-561-3416
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
>Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 12:17 PM
>To: Rich Cooper
>Cc: '[ontolog-forum]'
>Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
>
>
>On Feb 23, 2013, at 6:33 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>
>> Dear Pat,
>>
>> Good question. My response is below,
>> -Rich
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Rich Cooper
>> EnglishLogicKernel.com
>> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
>> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2013 4:01 PM
>> To: Rich Cooper
>> Cc: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
>>
>>
>> On Feb 23, 2013, at 3:39 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>>
>> Simon Spero wrote:
>> > the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has
>to be organized by our minds-and this means largely by the linguistic
>systems in our minds.
>>
>> Note the use of the word "largely"
>>
>> Does it mean that? I find this claim to be highly doubtful, myself. I
>have, at many times in my life, had to think and act while my mental
>linguistic system was not functioning at all, and found that my thinking was
>unimpaired by a temporary (epilepsy-induced) total aphasia.
>>
>> Could you enlarge on this please? Do you mean you had an epileptic
>seizure while in action, but were unable to verbalize?
>
>Not exactly. For about 25 years I had chronic seizures (largely controlled
>by medications) arising from a head injury in childhood. Their focus was my
>left temporal lobe, and their result was that I was totally aphasic -
>"word-blind", no language abilties at all, either speech or comprehension -
>for periods varying from a few seconds to about half an hour, while fully
>conscious and functional in every other way (as far as I and anyone else
>could tell.) So I know what total aphasia feels like and, more unusually,
>can tell others about it. And guess what, it feels like nothing, until you
>try to speak (or read - my own test to see how well I was recovering was to
>see if I could read a newspaper. The only way to find out was to try it, and
>see how well it worked.) It feels perfectly normal. Until you hear other
>people speaking gibberish, or try to say something and realize you have no
>idea what to do with your mouth to make those extraordinary noises, you
>would not know you had the condition. I could think without language in
>exactly the same way, and just as effectively, as I can with language.
>Language is irrelevant to (my) thinking. Even without the seizures, most of
>my thinking is best described using diagrams or mathematics, rather than
>verbally. All my academic life I have had a sharp distinciton between having
>the ideas, which is the thinking part, and writing them down in language,
>which is a tedious chore almost entirely unrelated to the thinking, and one
>that requires completely different kinds of effort. To write English prose
>does require thought, of course, but it requires thought *about English
>prose*, not about the topic being described. I have to worry about
>repetition and assonance and paragraph structure and keeping to the topic
>and all that English composition stuff that I had to learn in grammar
>school. I couldn't be doing all that crap while I was trying to prove a
>theorem or trying to figure out where the bugs are in my code. Expressing
>myself in language is serious extra work, and increasingly, with age, I find
>it not worth the effort.
>
>>
>> I had an experience as a ten year old where someone had pulled out the
>board that bridges a ditch. While riding my bike over the (missing) board,
>I took a tumble. For the next hour or so, I acted normally at my sailing
>class, went out in a boat, participated in a race, returned to the harbor,
>returned the boat (a pram) to the storage stack, and then finally became
>conscious again. Either I had lost consciousness but kept in action, or I
>just lost my memory of the actions. I will never know which. But my sister
>was at the same sailing class and told me I had done all those things, even
>talked and listened properly, during the lost time.
>
>Interesting experience, but not like mine.
>
>>
>> So in my case, I had both rational action and rational language during the
>missing hour.
>>
>> But in any case, this idea that thought somehow *is* language seems
>unlikely on a variety of grounds. I know I am not alone in being able to
>think many thoughts that I find it hard to utter in language - in some
>cases, impossible to do so. Why would this be true, if thought simply were
>language, or if it used the "linguistic system" in our minds?
>>
>> I agree that actions can be performed and thought can be performed, but
>not always together. I can ride a bike, but I couldn't explain to my kids
>HOW I ride a bike. They had to learn by doing, the same way I did.
>>
>> But we could define thought as linguistic, and use a different word for
>actions. So I suppose its really a matter of how you define "thought".
>Does it really have to encompass nonlinguistic actions like riding a bike?
>
>I was talking more about mental effort such as planning a complicated
>construction task (recently, in my case, a kitchen remodel), doing
>mathematics, or writing programs. None of these seem to me, subjectively,
>to
>be even slightly connected with language. If asked what I am doing when
>doing this kind of thing, or asked to describe my thoughts, I am completely
>unable to do so. It feels more like drawing elaborate internal pictures than
>anything linguistic (but even that is only a metaphor, as I couldnt draw it
>either :-)
>
>While apahasic, one task I figured out was how to convince my wife that I
>was OK (and not have her call the paramedics), which I did by standing up
>and dancing for her.
>
>>
>> Again, I can often time-share thinking and language use, for example
>following a chain of thought while listening to spoken instructions or even
>holding a conversation.
>>
>> Psychologists say we have at least two brains, as shown by the surprising
>results of split corpus callosum patients show in their experiments. It
>seems normal to have one part of your linguistic brain listening, while
>another part talks. Which task is "thinking"? The listening part, or the
>talking part? Clearly we need both to participate in a two way
>conversation, whether spoken or, like this one, typed and read.
>>
>> And, it is known that linguistic functionality is localized to
>comparatively small areas of the cortex (the left temporal and prefronal
>lobes), so if our minds *are* the linguistic system in our minds, what is
>the rest of this (biologically very expensive) neural tissue for?
>>
>> Broca's area and that other guy's area are known to participate in
>linguistic actions, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the brain isn't
>also participating - the cochleae are hearing simultaneously, though we
>think not symbolically. Other parts have their dedicated functionalities,
>but they also are part of the thought process. There are people who can
>talk and talk about some mundane story, but the story isn't true, didn't
>happen, and has no meaning other than the jabber produced in valid English.
>>
>> Does Spero give any evidence for this very strong, and I think extremely
>implausible, claim that it is our mental linguistic system which provides
>the categories for thought?
>>
>> It would be better to ask Simon Spero than to ask me.
>
>He answered. He doesn't have any evidence. .
>
>> But I agree with him in a fuzzy way (very little is known about our
>language and brain) until more detailed explanations are available in some
>future day.
>>
>> In my opinion, we call "thought" the communicable description of
>experience from observer to observer
>
>If that's the definition, then whatever it is that I do with my brain must
>be something else. I would define thought as the process that figures out
>how to solve problems and achieve goals in the face of difficulties. It is
>how we decide what to do. Communication is very important, but is not the
>defining characteristic of thought. Robinson Crusoe wasnt communicating
>anything, but he was doing a lot of thinking.
>
>> , and we each identify with the other through our memories, both action
>memories and language memories. So in finale, I think language is the
>symbolic and communicable portion of what we call "thought".
>>
>> Pat Hayes
>>
>> I hear its 84 degrees in Florida. I grew up there, and I miss it, but I
>love California better even with the crazies in political office here.
>
>My dear fellow, Florida has the lock on crazies, in or out of political
>office.
>
>Pat
>
>>
>> -Rich
>>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973
>40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
>Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax
>FL 32502 (850)291 0667 mobile
>phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
>
>
>
>
>
>
>___________________________________________________________
>______
>Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
>Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
>Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
>Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
>To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
>
>
>
>___________________________________________________________
>______
>Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
>Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
>Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
>Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
>To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
> (04)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (05)
|