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The essence of human language is, according to Chomsky, the ability of finite brains to produce what he considers to be infinite grammars. In high school I took one day of French, learned to say "I do not understand you" in that language, and then switched to typing. That was 49 years ago. As I tumbled through time further and further away from that one day of class I developed an increasingly irrational fear that someone would say something to me in French. And, instead of shaking my head or responding in English as might be expected, I would extend groping mental fingers back through time to that one day of French class in 1958 in an attempt to retrieve "I do not understand you" in French. And fail, and in the process appear retarded. Or, worse, confuse it with a joke I heard one time where the French expression translat... 10x, interesting clip think Portuguese should be the official international language on this planet & others as well ...  If the brain is a mapping machine and its senses the means by which the brain acquires its maps, the maps are useless without mechanisms by which to synthesize the stored information. In which case, the brain is always talking to itself even when not thinking or speaking in the mundane sense. That brains are also capable of talking to other brains is merely an extension of the fact that brains are social creatures. Language is, in fact, very much a social phenomenon and we brains are hardwired for it. Nevertheless, thought, language, and dreams are also emergent upon the brain's own internal communication -- processes which confer more information than can be thought or said. bove from Kauaiguy very succinct and to the point. The brain talking to itself cold be seen as a metaphor for the activity of the basic/biological 'syntactic structures' which sort, classify, categorise, constantly 'remap' - all hallmarks too of the infinite generativity of language. The surface structures of language, their 'parole' are subject to constant remapping and local influences which lead chronistically to relatively stable sociocultural 'local' grammars, 'langue'; the biological bases of language - which is only ever an 'option' - include the hardwired social instincts and the intelligent adaptive behaviours exemplified above in characterising the mapping processes. Complexity is... Correct you are, abailart. Language is emergent upon the evolutionary process of natural selection. The system of rules that defines the grammatical structure of a language posited by Chomsky should come as no surprise. Nature allows what works. Syntax is emergent upon synapses syntheses of "what's going on" mapping processes. Rules for "what works" at one level apply to "what works" at the next level. The complexity of human consciousness evokes a wonderland of possible world symantics. |
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