Six Laws of Language and Linguistics in Draft Form...

[Alexander Gross2]

A few of you wrote me privately back in June asking if I could make my 
ten-question quiz, distinguishing between practitioners of  Evidence Based & 
Voodoo Linguistics, available  before the LACUS event.  I didn't feel I 
could do so at that time, but now I suspect a number of you might find it of 
interest, along with a fair amount of other material I presented at that 
conference.

For instance, I was particularly encouraged by the positive reception that 
greeted my "Six Laws of Language and Linguistics in Draft Form."  At that 
time  they also formed a part of  my invited presentation "Is Evidence Based 
Linguistics the Solution?  Is Voodoo Linguistics the Problem?" which was 
supplemented a few days later by a two-hour workshop on Evidence Based 
Linguistics.  I would like to present them here as well, even though 
reactions are likely to be less positive, since it seems to me important 
that basic concepts concerning linguistics should be aired as fully as 
possible.  I have made a few changes based on comments from those at the 
conference, and I would also value comments from FunkNet subscribers as part 
of a process leading to a more definitive statement of these laws.  If they 
seem a bit disjointed the first time you read them, they are likely to make 
better sense in the context of my two LACUS presentations, which you can 
find on my website at:

http://languag2.home.sprynet.com/f/evidence.htm

and

http://languag2.home.sprynet.com/f/evishop.htm

They can also both be accessed from the Linguistics menu of my main website 
at:

http://language.home.sprynet.com/

You'll find the 10-question quiz near the beginning of the first URL.

However unusual some of these ideas may appear at first reading, I promise 
that I have done my best to fit  them within the framework of current 
linguistics theories.  I look forward to your comments.  The text of the 
"Six Laws" follows:

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        Six Laws of Language and Linguistics In Draft Form

1.  All communication takes place in shared contextual space, subject to a 
fairly complex process of disambiguation, depending on the conditions 
inherent in the other five Laws.  That space can be more or less roughly 
measured according to a specialized system of cartography.

2. The Law of Variable Context

If two people share sufficient context, almost any words, including sheer 
nonsense--or no words at all--will suffice for them to communicate with each 
other. If two people do not share sufficient context, then not all the words 
in the world may be enough for them to grasp each other's meaning. Where 
intermediate degrees of partial, fragmented, or otherwise limited or 
"noise-distorted" context are shared, communication will be proportionately 
difficult and/or unsuccessful.

3. The Law of Communication

Communication never takes place generically between languages and languages, 
or between dictionaries and dictionaries. All successful communication takes 
place under specific circumstances between a speaker and a listener, or a 
writer and a reader, or between a non-verbal communicator and his or her 
audience. When the communicator changes, and/or the nature of the audience 
and/or the circumstances change, often the content of the message must also 
change to some extent, if fully successful communication is to take place. 
This law holds true both for communication in a single language and for 
translating and interpreting, since there is essentially no difference 
between translating a message into another tongue and paraphrasing it within 
a single tongue. This law also holds true for automatic or electronic 
communication where the final recipient of information is a human being, and 
any act of communication appearing to originate from a computer, or to occur 
between two or more computers, only takes place because a human being has 
originally programmed it to occur. All the conditions of the first two laws 
still apply.

4. The Law of Linguistic Entropy

A form of entropy, related to Shannon's concept of information entropy or 
Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures--or of chaos as found in 
meteorology and other complex systems--also exists for language, and any 
sentence, concept, or act of communication may fall into such entropy or 
chaos even after it has been accurately repeated a number of times. Where 
Shannon's concept  applies to letters of the alphabet, this one applies to 
words, phrases, and/or entire sentences.  The number of times the message 
must be repeated to fall into such entropy or chaos depends on the nature of 
the message, the number of people attempting to repeat it, and whatever 
ambient or incidental noise of whatever type may be present either in the 
system they are using or among those attempting to repeat it.

5. The Law of Recapitulation

Just as Haeckel and Von Baer observed and debated the nature of a form of 
recapitulation in the development of the embryo, so there also exists a 
process of recapitulation regarding language. During their development from 
children into  adults, all human beings will necessarily pass through a 
recapitulation of as many of the forms and structures of their language as 
they possibly can within the limits of utility and the peaceful development 
of their society.

6. The brain understands the language it hears or reads through a combined 
comparison of sound, meaning, context, and expected collocations, seeking 
out a match with other sounds, meanings, contexts, and collocations it has 
already encountered.  Once it has made this match, which may be more or less 
precise, it assumes it has understood correctly.  Grammar plays a relatively 
small role in this process, sometimes none at all.  Said otherwise, the way 
almost all communication works is by means of a relatively error-prone, 
quick and dirty matching operation, in some ways comparable to matching 
operations by computers.  We know the brain proceeds in this manner, because 
it sometimes makes mistakes, permitting us to draw inferences about the way 
it functions.  This process has for its source the humble origins of 
language through evolution from the chemical signals of early life forms to 
the scent markings of animals to the sound markings of humans, which we 
interpret as language, thus providing further proof that Darwin's theory of 
evolution must be true.

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Please feel free to post your comments here or to send them to my to my 
email address:  language at sprynet.com

Thanks in advance,

Alex Gross