From thinkit8@lycos.com Tue Dec 04 16:05:06 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: thinkit8@lycos.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_2); 5 Dec 2001 00:05:06 -0000 Received: (qmail 17715 invoked from network); 4 Dec 2001 23:02:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Dec 2001 23:02:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n20.groups.yahoo.com) (216.115.96.70) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Dec 2001 23:02:38 -0000 Received: from [216.115.96.143] by n20.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 04 Dec 2001 22:57:51 -0000 Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 23:02:37 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: thoughts on numerical language Message-ID: <9ujkmd+9jdo@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1760 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster From: thinkit8@lycos.com X-Originating-IP: 12.224.27.33 X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=71054096 X-Yahoo-Profile: thinkit41 --- In lojban@y..., And Rosta wrote: > >>> 12/03/01 05:23pm >>> > #When trying to put together a binary-encoded language, I noticed > #some interesting things. Lojban serves as a great model, for one. > #I noticed some things became a lot easier--you don't have to worry > #about fitting things into human pronunciation. Depending on how > #compact you want it to be, there's a lot less compromises to be > #made. This becomes even more freeing (perhaps this is an extention > #of the hypothesis...maybe our vocal cords limit our thought). > > It's an essential feature of human language that the basic ingredients > of phonological structure are independent of meaning and function; > a language has one set of rules for defining valid phonological structures > and another whooly separate set of rules governing their mapping to > semanticosyntactic structures. So it should be possible to change the > phonology -- which is what I assume you mean by binary-encoding -- > without affecting syntax/semantics. Our vocal tract limits not what > we can express, but only how quickly we can express it. > > --And. True, to an extent. I mentioned the fa-fu as a lojban example where it does influence. Viewed numerically, a typical phonology can be thought of as a mixed base number perhaps. I think it will differentiate itself when you start looking at things that are just too cumbursome that they are never expressed in a human language. For example, in a binary language it's easy to imbed something like a bitmap to directly describe a flat picture (or indeed any flat bit string, like a DSD sound). In the end, the quickness of expressions determines what gets expressed, too (isn't that Zipf?).