From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Tue Aug 01 12:38:30 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 27501 invoked from network); 1 Aug 2000 19:38:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Aug 2000 19:38:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO fh.egroups.com) (10.1.2.135) by mta1 with SMTP; 1 Aug 2000 19:38:30 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.95] by fh.egroups.com with NNFMP; 01 Aug 2000 19:38:29 -0000 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 Message-ID: <8m78vj+epib@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <3985B3EE.6AD6@erols.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Length: 4256 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 193.149.49.79 From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._Tueting_(T=FCting)?=" --- In lojban@egroups.com, "T. Peter Park" wrote: > ... in his chapter on "Language and Neural Codes," Prof. > Smith wrote: >=20 > < 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