grammars

[Sean M. Burke]

H Stephen Straight wrote:
>[...]I don't know whether to
>call it the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, or just plain old
>equivocation and mystification, but I do think that locating grammars
>in the mind/brain makes about as much sense as locating physical
>equations (E=mc squared) in physical objects (atoms?).

Similarly, I've been thinking of late about this question, that's also
somewhat about "where's the rules?":

Consider that there's two ways to implement a system that does something
(in this case, that something is: understanding and producing language --
i.e., having a grammar):

1) a way where the operational elements of the system more or less match
what patterns you'd observe in the output.  Call this an "isomorphic"
system.  (I'm borrowing the term from some old object-oriented programming
books I read, where it was used to mean the property of a program whose
internal organization mirrors the organization of the problem being
attacked, the situation being simulated, etc.)

or:
2) a way where the basics of the program aren't isomorphic, but instead do
fit together such that the thing (here, grammar) that you want is
"emergent" -- and I use the word in /exactly/ the same sense as it's used
in speaking of the patterns being emergent in Conway's Life, or
Patternson's Worm(s), or [insert your favorite complex systems simulation
here].  Call this an "emergence-based" system.


Now suppose (in what is clearly now just a gedanken experiment) that I have
two adult, lingual human brains (with the usual human bodies attached); and
suppose that they both have effectively the same receptive and productive
grammars of some or other language.  But suppose that I know (somehow) that
Brain A implements grammar using an "isomorphic" system, whereas Brain B
implements grammar using an "emergence-based" system.

Now:
Is Brain B's grammar any less real than Brain A's?

Or, taking somewhat of a different tack:
If we all have brains like Brain B, are linguistic statements about our
grammar any less interesting (whatever that means) or explanatory (whatever
that means) than they would be if we all had brains like Brain A?

--
Sean M. Burke sburke at netadventure.net http://www.netadventure.net/~sburke/