Re: SCWC 32: Discussion: IMPLEMENT

On Jun 11, 3:40 pm, Angus Rodgers <twir...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:41:45 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"

<gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No one who speaks (even linguists) is aware of the rules
underlying their speech.

I'm aware of when a rule is broken. By observation,
including self-observation, I can formulate hypotheses
concerning the rule. Certainly this is extra work, and
I can't immediately think of any rules that I'm aware
of in their full generality. But being aware of when
a rule is broken certainly counts as awareness of the
rule - it is just not fully reflective awareness.

Some examples of what you're referring to would be illuminating.

(I'm not at all sure to what extent the making explicit
of a rule is a process of discovery, and to what extent
it is an invention, but we do seem to grasp some things
best in the form of rules.)

But then, fully reflective awareness of /anything/, if
it even exists at all, is surely very rare. So aren't
you applying a perfectionist standard here?

We understand lots of things, e.g. humour and music, and
no-one usually insists that if you don't have a fully
explicit, general, reasoned, systematic understanding of
a thing, then you don't understand it at all.

Talking, like seeing, walking, and the few other things that babies
learn to do automatically, is qualitatively different from humor,
music, and any other products of human consciousness and ingenuity.
You can remember learning to, say, ride a bicycle and how you did it,
but you cannot remember learning to see, talk, or walk. Those most
basic animal, mammalian, or human characteristics are not available
for introspection.

(More commonly, perhaps, people do seem inclined to think
that it is in principle impossible to reach a reflective
understanding of your own thought processes, by a process
of observation and testing; so, if you want to know what
is going on in your own "brain", the only hope is for an
outside expert to be called in. Like the behaviourists
at a conference: "How am I?" "You're fine, how am I?")

In particular, you cannot know what is going on in your head when you
talk. All we can do is observe a tiny fraction of the entire corpus of
utterances.

I "understand" some Beethoven quartets, but I don't have
even the most rudimentary understanding of Western musical
theory, and I can't even hear a key change. I love comedy,
but I haven't a clue how humour works, or what a joke is.
I know quite a lot about mathematics, have read something
of its logic and philosophy, yet I am constantly at a loss
to say what it is. And so on for lots and lots of things -

Absolutely none of which is comparable to language. Experts in those
things _are_ able to perform reliable and even introspective analyses
of them.

including language.

Nope!

On the other hand (trying to wander a little on-topic
again), I /don't/ have even an informal, unreflective
understanding of cryptic "crossword English". Not only
am I not fully aware of its rules, but I don't even have
a good intuitive feel for when its rules are being broken.

(By hanging around for a while with people who understand
it better than I do, I hope to pick it up, perhaps become
a native.)

(Of course I have some idea - enough to do some quite
hard crosswords - but I know I have much more to learn
about this particular "language game" than I do about
English usage in general.)

While we're on the topic: how much formal work has been
done on "crossword linguistics"? Have "grammars" been
written for this particularly mangled form of English?

They don't think of them as grammars, but there are a number of
introductions to clue construction (Mr Biddlecombe can provide an
extensive annotated list).

Spelling has nothing to do with language.

Here you leave me speechless!

I could say something rude, but instead I'll refer you to some
excellent works intended for just such a reader as yourself: David
Crystal, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (I prefer the 1st ed.);
just about anything by Jean Aitchison, who is, incredibly, the Rupert
Murdoch Professor of Communication (vel sim.) at Oxford but
nonetheless is a highly respected linguist and a superb writer for the
gen.pub.; and Peter Trudgill and coeditor, Language Myths.

.

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