Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 19:38:27 -0000
To: lojban@egroups.com
Subject: Re: Beyond Whorf: "things," "qualities," and the origin of nouns and adjectives
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--- In lojban@egroups.com, "T. Peter Park" <tpeterpark@e...> wrote:

> ... in his chapter on "Language and Neural Codes," Prof.
> Smith wrote:
>=20
> 	<<What is the poor brain to do to bring these different, mutually
> incompatible classes of information [visual, auditory, olfactory,
> tactile, etc.] together for some common processing step? There is
no way
> that these disparate inputs can be fed into any common processor
without
> being translated into a code that is capable of handling all of the
> modalities at once. What might that code be? It cannot talk about
sights
> or sounds or smells. Such information would be meaningless to all
but
> the specialized portion of the sensory brain that had always been
> committed to each of these senses. It cannot, in short, be a code
that
> deals with sensory signals emitted by some outside agent. It must
be a
> code that refers to the thing *itself*, not the stimuli it emits.
The
> new code symbol would not be "small, black and white, furry," nor
> "pitter, patter, snuffle, stomp," nor yet "awful, acrid smell!" The
code
> would have to be a symbol that stood simply for *skunk*--a symbol
for
> the external reality itself, rather than a set of partial sensory
> reports *about* the outside world. Sensory codes consisted entirely
of
> adjectives, and this universal cross-modal code introduced *nouns*.
By
> the same cross-modal process the nervous system developed a code
that
> integrates individual messages from muscles, stretch receptors, and
> again the eye, to move beyond the body with a symbolic code that
refers
> to space and [pp.143/144] movement in the world outside of the skin,
> rather angles of joints and stretch of muscles. Thus verbs were
born.>>
>=20
> 	This, I think, helps beautifully to account for my own observation
that
> all known human languages without exception possess nouns and verbs
as
> well as adjectives, words for objects and actions as well as words
for
> qualities or individual discrete sense-data. If Curtis Smith and his
> theories about cross-modal sensory processing are correct, the very
> existence of language requires the existence of words for objects as
> whole *Gestalts* and not just stringings-together of their various
> qualities. To use Curtis Smith's own example, language from the very
> beginning necessarily included words like "skunk" and never ever
used
> stringings-together of quality-words like
> "black-white-furry-pitter-patter-stinky" more than perhaps to a very
> limited extent! A language composed of adjective-chains like
> "black-white-furry-stinky," if it had ever existed, would have
defeated
> the whole purpose of language--and could not perhaps have even
existed
> in the first place, as I see Curtis Smith's argument! Curtis Smith's
> theory of linguistic origins, by the way, also suggests that, in
talking
> about the psychology of human sensory perception and the origin of
our
> mental concepts and complex ideas, the Gestalt psychologists may
well
> have gotten it more nearly right than John Locke and David Hume!

T. Peter, I totally can agree with you in this final conclusion: It's
our human brain that creates the nouns. We don't perceive those=20
"bundles" of stringed qualities unwinding the coil (the Gestalt!)
into a string of "black-white-furry-stinky" or even a "red-
smooth-soft-causing pleasant emotions...", but as one whole, parallel
impression (=3Dimage) of  a "skunk" (Stinktier) or a "kiss"=20
(=3Dsoft mouth kissing). Locke and Hume are correct for sure stating
that there is no perception of the world outside except by our=20
senses, but this performs in an integral way, not in a sequence - at
least the result of it when processed in our brains!
What is more interesting to me, is:  why are there languages like
Nootka expressing "real" nouns (e.g. house) in a *verbal*=20
category? This cannot be due to natural human perception (see above),
but rather to a metaphysical (better: physical)=20
comprehension of our world outside! Did they really have deep insight
in physics (the *fact* that all material is nothing but a=20
"flowing" (panta rhei!) process - a stream of electrons etc.)?

co'o mi'e .aulun.

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ***/*=99 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry=20