20July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: Sypniewski; Yngve; expectations; reading; text.
This is a joint paper by Yngve and Sypniewski, delivered at the 2004 SLE conference at Agder University, Kristiansand, Norway. The paper presents an initial look at how texts and reading can be interpreted in Hard Science Linguistics. While preliminary, our research indicates that expectations play a siignfcant role in our understanding of a text and that the structure of the text triggers those expectations to a large degree. The text used is a jury verdict form, ahighly formalized document. More about this document and the context in which it is used can be found in the ‘Closings’ paper that can be found on this site. Click here for a copy.
18July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: computerization.
The notation of Hard Science Linguistics is thorough and may be sufficient to allow us to computerize models of communicative behavior. I have made some attempts in this regard in both PYTHON and ALICE. They are available on my website. Click on ‘My Linguistic Interests’.
I wrote a small paper on the use of HSL as a formalism for the International Conference on Computing and Information Technologies Exploring Emerging Technologies and published in their proceedings edited by George Antoniou and Dorothy Deremer, World Scientific Publishers, River Edge, NJ 2001. You can download it here.
14July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: foundations.
Meaning and the UnexpectedThis paper, delivered at the 2007 Ars Grammatica conference held at Minsk State Linguistic University, furthers some work that I presented at a workshop at the 2006 LACUS conference at the University of Toronto. Saussure’s brief description of meaning is generally accepted as the way that we “decode” language. This paper presents reasons why we should question Saussure’s description. The ‘unexpected’ material, referred to in the title, comes from various sources that are not traditionally used in linguistic analysis. The sortes Virgilianae, a form of fortune telling from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, used texts from the Roman poet Virgil which were selected at random (by opening a book and blindly pointing to a verse) as the basis of the fortune telling. In effect, the process created a “new meaning” by placing a text with an “old meaning” into a new context. There was also another use for Virgil along these lines. A type of poetry, called cento, developed in which lines from Virgil were extracted from the original text and then reassembled into new non-Virgilian poems with “new” non-Virgilian meanings.
The paper also examines consciously construsted “words” from the DADAist, surrealist, and similar art movements of the early 20th century. “Words” were constructed which the artists wanted to have NO meaning while still being able to be used for communicative purposes. One of the versions of the origin of the word DADA itself bears striking similarity to the sortes mentioned above.
In short, the Saussurian view of meaning is, at best, inadequate to explain what people do when they communicate. This paper shows that meaning can be constructed and that words can be INTENDED to have NO meaning at all.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2008. Meaning and the Unexpected. Ars Grammatica conference, Minsk State Linguistic University, Minsk, Belarus Click here for the PDF: mu.pdf
13July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: surroundings.
A Theory about the Effect that the Surroundings have On How People Communicate This paper, which was accepted for publication in Proceedings of Voronezh State University, Voronezh, Russia, is a summary of my recent work on the surroundings (what Austin refers to as ‘context’ but from a more scientific point of view). The paper includes a worked-out linkage that describes the effect that sound system feedback has on the communicative behavior of two resturaunt patrons.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2008. The effect that the surroundings have on how people communicate. Proceedings of Voronezh State University, Voronezh, Russia Click here for the PDF: surroundings-theory.pdf
13July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: surroundings.
Snake in the grassThis paper, which has been published in Language, Communication and Social Environment, Issue 6, Voronezh State University, 2008 and in a slightly reduced version in the fall 2009 edition of Respectus Philologicus (web site), is a thought experiment. The purpose of the thought experiment is to further explore the effects of the surroundings on communicative behavior. The experiment consists of three linkages (field, street, and warehouse). There are two two participants in each linkage who are the same (Able and Baker) and one additional individual (Charlie) in the street linkage who does not participate in any communicative behavior. There is one sentence uttered by Able to Baker: ‘Look! There is a snake in the grass.’ while pointing at an actual snake (in the field linkage), Charlie (in the street linkage) or nothing (in the warehouse linkage).
The experiment postulates the effect of the surroundings on Baker’s understanding of Able’s statement. Professor Coleman has pointed out that the paper can also be read as a paper on vagueness and ambiguity. Frankly, I had not seen that when I wrote the paper but his observation is correct. Discussions of vagueness and ambiguity “fell out” of research on another topic.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2008. Snake in the Grass. Language, Communication and Social Environment, Issue 6, Voronezh State University, 2008 Click here for the PDF: snake.pdf
13July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: foundations.
Infinite sentencesThere is a linguistic truism that “language” can create an infinite number of sentences. This claim is made frequently, usually in passing, and, as far as I have been able to determine, never critically. I have become interested in the foundations of modern linguistics and the infinite sentence claim is one of the bases of the discipline.
If one takes the notion of the “infinite” seriously as it appears in mathematics and related disciplines and applies that notion to “language”, one finds that the purpose of the claim is not to describe an observed aspect of reality but to support the need for “language” to have a “grammar”. If “language” can truly generate an infinite number of “sentences” (the linguistic notion of the sentence is confused with the logical/mathematical/computer science notion of a “string” of characters with no intrinsic semantical meaning), most of the “sentences” generated will be either meaningless (in the semantic sense), gibberish (in the sense of a meaningless collection of characters), or in some way defective. “Grammar” comes to the rescue by determining which of these random sentences are acceptable for human communication.
For this to work, human communication must be, essentially, random. But we know that human communications are NOT essentially random. This raises the serious question of the purpose of “grammar”. If there is no need to distinguish between good and bad sentences, what is the purpose of grammar?
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2008. Infinite sentences. LACUS Forum Click here for the PDF: infinitesentences02.pdf
13July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: surroundings.
Closings This paper, published in the 2004 “Hard Science Linguistics”, Yngve and Wasik, is an analysis of some aspects of a typical criminal trial in the state of New Jersey (USA). The paper describes counsels’ closing arguments, a typical charge to the jury, and some aspects of jury interaction. The purpose of the study is to test Austin’s idea of performative utterances (as is my paper “Lottery Betting” also uploaded on this site), in this case, Austin’s verdictive. The study concludes that Austin’s notion is not scientific although it does anticipate some finding of HSL.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2004. Closings. Hard Science Linguistics, Yngve and Wasik Click here for the PDF: hsltrial03a.pdf
13July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: Sypniewski.
Lottery BettingAs part of my ongoing research into the effects of the surroundings on communicative behavior, I began a series of observations at a local convenience store to determine how people communicated when doing a well-defined task in a non-laboratory setting. Lottery betting in New Jersey is nearly a ritual. The paper describes the surroundings and how the elements of the surroundings effected the communicative behavior of the people who were involved in the purchase of a lottery ticket. When the surroundings are formalized to a sufficient degree (a matter of further research), an act (a lottery bet) can be accomplished without using words. Of course, the same act can be accomplished with words and usually is. However, these observations raise questions about whether spoken language is used more for its social function or to “lubricate” an activity rather than to strictly convey information as is the current dominant paradigm.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2004. Lottery betting. Hard Science Linguistics, Yngve and Wasik. Click here for the PDF: lottery-betting.pdf
12July2009
Posted by bsypniewski under: Uncategorized.
Domain ConfusionThis paper begins a dsuion of what domain confusion is and why the problem of domain confusion is important. Domain confusion is endemic in linguistics. The domain confusion in linguistics confuses theory with reality and prefers to deal with the theory raher than reality directly. From my discussions with linguists, domain confusion is difficult for many to see. There are several reasons: 1. the notion that a trained linguist knows the difference between the theory and the reality that the theory is a theory of; 2. that there is no problem: you are SUPPOSED to deal with theories; 3. linguists don’t understand the difference between theory and reality. Some linguists have one of these errors; others have more than one in some combination.
Domain confusion is a partof a wider problem: most linguists don’t seem to care about the scientific basis of linguistics. Many linguists seem to feel that linguistics is a science because someone (Chomsky, whomever) told them so. Others simply come out and say that the foundations of linguistics aren’t all that important (or ‘interesting’, which amounts to the same thing). In a sense, linguistics is in a position similar to logic and physics in the late 19th century.
Sypniewski, Bernard. 2006. Domain confusion. LACUS Forum Click here for the PDF: dc02.pdf
13August2008
Posted by admin under: Tools & Resources.
This is a “home brew” TrueType font for Windows with AND, OR, and NAND gates, including some variations of AND and OR gates with INVERTERs on the input side: boolean9.TTF