Really?

Noel Rude nrude at ucinet.com
Wed Mar 10 19:21:25 UTC 1999


Hi to you too,

        Maybe the public perception is that language is just words--isn't that
what nonlinguists think?--but shouldn't every class in linguistics
emphasize that language is also structure?  Information is by definition
structured.  And language structure is hierachical, and it exists on two
levels.  Semantics and discourse have their own structure, whether or
not this has been automated in a grammar.  And then when you look at all
the closed classes and word order permutations, conjugations,
declensions, etc., in a natural language, you see another level of
structure--grammar--which the descriptivist cannot ignore.

        If structure necessarily exists on a semantic and discourse level, why
should it not be reflected in the automated, routinized delivery system
that Givon talks about?

        Noel



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