Grammar with a "G"

Sydney M Lamb lamb at ruf.rice.edu
Mon Mar 29 17:01:12 UTC 1999


On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, Rob Freeman wrote:

> Sydney M Lamb wrote:
>
> > The question is, as asked by one interested in what is in the mind and
> > what is going on there: Are you distinguishing between (1) the mechanism
> > being proposed for arriving at "grammar" (or some command of the language)
> > and (2) that resulting "grammar" or command of the lg?
>
> If I understand you then 'Yes'. And I would put 'command of the language'
firmly
> back on option '1).' I think command is pretty firmly rooted in the mechanism.
> Except when you have to pass an English exam.

If you really want to put command of the language "firmly back on option
'1)'" then you seem not to be distinguishing between (a) the learning
mechanism and (b) what results from the learning process.  Is that really
your position? or am I misunderstanding?

> > Put in another way, are you proposing that the result consists just of
> > remembered examples plus an ability to analogize?  Or are you proposing
> > that the result of the analogical and other operations has some particular
> > form other than that?
>
> The 'examples and ability' one.

Ah, then, it seems that I have not misunderstood and that you really
are claiming that the brain only remembers examples and has the ability
to analogize, but that it doesn't generalize from the examples nor from
its analogizing.

>    The analogical operations can give you _lots_ of
> forms, and I think that is an important operation at different times...

Yes, indeed they can -- but do you really want to claim that the brain
goes back to square one each time and just starts from the examples plus
the ability to analogize, and doesn't remember the results of such
processing performed earlier, and doesn't build generalizations?

>  ... . Of what I regard as 'real' perhaps I can mention
> the high spots here. ...
> Parallel Distributed Processing stuff goes without saying (mostly some
interesting
> experiments with finite word classes: English Past Tense etc.), but that
carries
> it's own psychological baggage around with it, and some limitations of
method too
> (the finite class bit), so I wouldn't want to emphasize it here.

Oops!! I now have to ask, what kind of reality you have in mind. The PDP
stuff has practically zero neurological plausibility, hence can hardly be
regarded as able to come up with anything realistic.  (At least, I'm happy
to observe that you "wouldn't want to emphasize it here.")

> ...
> > Yes, I agree. And my view (now expressed more fully in my new book)
> > includes a warm spot for analogy (cf. Chap. 14); But it also includes the
> > position that analogy is a mechanism and that what results from its
> > operation is new network structure, which in effect incorporates
> > generalizations that have resulted from the opn of analogy upon observed
> > and remembered inputs.
>
> A rose by another name? Funny, I would have said a _network_ is a mechanism,
and
> what results (very naturally, though not exclusively) from its operation is
often analogy!

I come very close to agreeing with this.  To clarify we would have
to move to the next higher level of precision, where we could say that
what we have is a network system and that it can indeed be thought of as a
mechanism; but I would prefer to say (at the risk of sounding obscure)
that some of its operations produce results that _could be described_ as
analogical. It is a subtle distinction, but what I am trying to say is
that the term 'analogy' doesn't Directly characterize either an operation
of the system or the results of such operation; rather it describes (and
quite well) what the system Seems to be doing -- but it doesn't Direcly
describe what it is Actually doing to give that appearance. In other
words, the operation of the network system Accounts for our observations
that there seems to be some kind of analogical process involved.

OK, I admit it. This Does Indeed sound pretty obscure. But there is
an example which can clarify, on pp. 212-213 of 'Pathways of the
Brain'.  It proposes a simple process of building new connections in the
developing system of a typical child, just in the most directly available
way to the system at that point, which results in the child's producing
'brang' as the past tense of 'bring'.

> But there is probably room to describe analogical processes as
'abstract
> networks' if you want to.

No, I wouldn't want to do that.

> As for the rest, the 'relativeness' bit, all is agreement (...many perspectives,
> ... For me the 'reality' point is
> resolved by what you can _do_ with the theories you get. Anyway, if we agree
to
> define the 'truth' as a theory we can do something with (wrt a given problem)
 we are
> in agreement on the distinction between 'God's Truth' and 'Hocus Pocus' (wrt
a given
> problem).

Too bad: we are Not in agreement. If you allow many theories which can
come up with similar products then you are talking hocus-pocus wrt the
actual mechanism (in our case, brain structures). These multiple theories
are saying, in effect, "It's AS IF the brain were operating in such and
such a way". So, for example, linguists might construct many diff grammars
of many diff forms, all of which would account for certain sentences of a
lg. If they do so correctly, that would apparently be good enough to
satisfy you -- along with many others.  Fine, may you and they be blessed.
But:
For a person interested in God's Truth, that isn't good enough --
such a person wants to know, to at least some extent, what is Actually
There.

Best,
   -Syd



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