Language TheoryGuten tag.
You know what I do over the summer?
Read through Linguistics-related books and news articles.
And either sadly or pridefully, I enjoy it.
I started reading The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker in the fall. I unfortunately didn't have a lot of time, so I only got through half the book in two semesters... but now I've resumed reading it. Witty guy, Pinker-- makes the book a pleasure to read.
Our innate ability to acquire language, how our brain deals with language, evolution of language... he discusses topics as such.
Anyway I'm on Chapter 8, and it's about the universal properties of all languages. The basic design underlying the grammars of all human languages is called Universal Grammar (UG).
He writes about the differences between SVO, SOV, and VSO languages.
Subject-verb-object: ex. English; "Dog bites man."
Subject-object-verb: ex. Japanese; "Dog man bites."
Verb-subject-object: ex. Gaelic; "Bites dog man."
This is one example of how the 4000-6000 languages of the world differ.
But according to Noam Chomsky (linguist most responsible for the language-as-an-instinct theory), "a visiting Martian scientist would surely conclude that aside from their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, Earthlings speak a single language,"
How?
Research reveals "striking universals" in patterns of languages.
Some hold absolutely; for example, you can't form questions by reversing the order of words within a sentene. In any language. Built Jack that house the this is? is not possible.
Some are statistical: most languages have SVO or SOV order; fewer have VSO; VOS and OVS are rare (less than 1%); and OSV may be nonexistent.
But if you think about it, what's amazing is that first of all, we find concepts of subjects, objects, and verbs in all languages!
Pinker writes, "Afterall, if we were asked to look for the order of subject, object, and verb in musical notation, or in the computer programming language FORTRAN, or in Morse code, or in arithmetic, we would protest that the very idea is nonsensical."
I paused there to ponder for a second.
Musical notation, eh?
He's implying that what he's listed is language-like-but-not-really.
As mentioned in my first weblog entry, I'm a music performance enthusiast, too. I conducted my high school marching band as drum major one year. I believe in expressiveness in music. To me, what's most important when performing music is transmitting a message, an emotion, to the audience.
How?
I dunno, it's something you feel as an instinct.
I mention conducting because I think it's the most direct form of expression in music. Facial expression, like in sign language, is important in conducting. Now that I think about it, conducting is kinda like sign language. You wave, you point, you nod, you smile, you frown, you squint, you stomp, you jump. The last two might be limited to me, who knows.
When you conduct, it's not just about setting the tempo or telling the band how loud or soft the music is. Is the music happy? Sad? Sappy? Grand? Nostalgic? Exciting? Mysterious?
And you know you've gotten the message across when the band (or orchestra) responds with the appropriate emotion in sound.
In that way of communication, I think music is like a language.
Nonsense?
Not too long ago, I came across an article on Lingformant about how music can perhaps be a language.
Basically, when in a musician's brain, music is processed like language, on the left side of the brain, as opposed to non-musicians who process it on the right side.
The experiment showed that musicians performed significantly worse on a language test in the presence of music. Meaning, they did better in silence.
For non-musicians, there were no significant differences in the test performances under both conditions.
"The evidence from these initial tests suggests that musicians hear music as language because they have difficulty processing both language and music at the same time, the brain is competing for the same resources."
Oh ho?
Perhaps I'm not crazy afterall.
I informally interviewed the most musically talented friend I know, and he told me that it's the most distracting thing to have someone talk to him while performing or composing music.
This might be light evidence for such a theory.
But back to Universal Grammar. Music doesn't have subjects, objects, or verbs.
Or does it?
This is me thinking hypothetically:
What if you took brainwave measurements (or whatever scientists do) of someone reading and saying a verbal sentence, and see if any identification of subject vs. object vs. verb show up? Further, what if you compare that measurement to a musician hearing and playing a musical phrase and see if anything matches up?
What if that showed underlying subjects, objects, and verbs in music?
I wonder how ridiculous I sound to Chomsky.
Whatever, this is my blog.
You know what I do over the summer?
Read through Linguistics-related books and news articles.
And either sadly or pridefully, I enjoy it.
I started reading The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker in the fall. I unfortunately didn't have a lot of time, so I only got through half the book in two semesters... but now I've resumed reading it. Witty guy, Pinker-- makes the book a pleasure to read.
Our innate ability to acquire language, how our brain deals with language, evolution of language... he discusses topics as such.
Anyway I'm on Chapter 8, and it's about the universal properties of all languages. The basic design underlying the grammars of all human languages is called Universal Grammar (UG).
He writes about the differences between SVO, SOV, and VSO languages.
Subject-verb-object: ex. English; "Dog bites man."
Subject-object-verb: ex. Japanese; "Dog man bites."
Verb-subject-object: ex. Gaelic; "Bites dog man."
This is one example of how the 4000-6000 languages of the world differ.
But according to Noam Chomsky (linguist most responsible for the language-as-an-instinct theory), "a visiting Martian scientist would surely conclude that aside from their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, Earthlings speak a single language,"
How?
Research reveals "striking universals" in patterns of languages.
Some hold absolutely; for example, you can't form questions by reversing the order of words within a sentene. In any language. Built Jack that house the this is? is not possible.
Some are statistical: most languages have SVO or SOV order; fewer have VSO; VOS and OVS are rare (less than 1%); and OSV may be nonexistent.
But if you think about it, what's amazing is that first of all, we find concepts of subjects, objects, and verbs in all languages!
Pinker writes, "Afterall, if we were asked to look for the order of subject, object, and verb in musical notation, or in the computer programming language FORTRAN, or in Morse code, or in arithmetic, we would protest that the very idea is nonsensical."
I paused there to ponder for a second.
Musical notation, eh?
He's implying that what he's listed is language-like-but-not-really.
As mentioned in my first weblog entry, I'm a music performance enthusiast, too. I conducted my high school marching band as drum major one year. I believe in expressiveness in music. To me, what's most important when performing music is transmitting a message, an emotion, to the audience.
How?
I dunno, it's something you feel as an instinct.
I mention conducting because I think it's the most direct form of expression in music. Facial expression, like in sign language, is important in conducting. Now that I think about it, conducting is kinda like sign language. You wave, you point, you nod, you smile, you frown, you squint, you stomp, you jump. The last two might be limited to me, who knows.
When you conduct, it's not just about setting the tempo or telling the band how loud or soft the music is. Is the music happy? Sad? Sappy? Grand? Nostalgic? Exciting? Mysterious?
And you know you've gotten the message across when the band (or orchestra) responds with the appropriate emotion in sound.
In that way of communication, I think music is like a language.
Nonsense?
Not too long ago, I came across an article on Lingformant about how music can perhaps be a language.
Basically, when in a musician's brain, music is processed like language, on the left side of the brain, as opposed to non-musicians who process it on the right side.
The experiment showed that musicians performed significantly worse on a language test in the presence of music. Meaning, they did better in silence.
For non-musicians, there were no significant differences in the test performances under both conditions.
"The evidence from these initial tests suggests that musicians hear music as language because they have difficulty processing both language and music at the same time, the brain is competing for the same resources."
Oh ho?
Perhaps I'm not crazy afterall.
I informally interviewed the most musically talented friend I know, and he told me that it's the most distracting thing to have someone talk to him while performing or composing music.
This might be light evidence for such a theory.
But back to Universal Grammar. Music doesn't have subjects, objects, or verbs.
Or does it?
This is me thinking hypothetically:
What if you took brainwave measurements (or whatever scientists do) of someone reading and saying a verbal sentence, and see if any identification of subject vs. object vs. verb show up? Further, what if you compare that measurement to a musician hearing and playing a musical phrase and see if anything matches up?
What if that showed underlying subjects, objects, and verbs in music?
I wonder how ridiculous I sound to Chomsky.
Whatever, this is my blog.
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