Description of Language Design

Abstract

Physicists describe speech with continuous mathematics, such as Fourier analysis or the autocorrelation function. Linguists describe language instead, using a discontinuous or discrete mathematics called “linguistics.” The nature of this odd calculus is outlined and justified here. It treats speech communication as having a telegraphic structure. (Non-linguists normally fail to orient themselves in this field because they treat speech as analogous to telephony.) The telegraph-code structure of language is examined from top to bottom, and at each of its several levels of complexity (compared to the two levels of Morse code) its structure is shown to be defined by possibilities and impossibilities of combination among the units of that level. Above the highest level we find, instead of such absolute restrictions, conditional probabilities of occurrence: this is the semantic field, outside linguistics, where sociologists can work. Below the lowest level we find, instead of such absolute restrictions, conditional probabilities of phonetic quality: this is the phonetic field, outside linguistics, where physicists can work. Thus linguistics is peculiar among mathematical systems in that it abuts upon reality in two places instead of one. This statement is equivalent to defining a language as a symbolic system; that is, as a code.

De la notion degrammaire standarddans une optique diglossique du français

“…(Nous devons faire de notre linguistique une sorte de mathématique, dans laquelle toute incohérence est par définition impossible.) [Joos 1950: 702, cité par Chambers 1995: 12, cité par Coveney 2011 Cette hypothèse n'est pas admise par les sociolinguistes variationnistes, qui plaident la nature foncièrement 'hétérogène' des productions linguistiques. Toutefois, l''hétérogénéité' dont ils traitent ne peut s'invoquer qu'au niveau des productions attestées (la 'performance', la 'langue externe'), et non au niveau des grammaires internes sous-tendant ces productions (la 'compétence', la 'langue interne'), qui sont par définition inaccessiblesà l'oeil nu.…”

Linguistic Constraint Systems as General Soft Constraint Satisfaction

“…Joos (1950) (reprinted in Aarts et al (2004)) denies the existence of gradation or continuity "in either form or meaning." Following this period, from the late 1950s, the structuralist conviction about the nonexistence of gradience in linguistic categorization was challenged.…”

Fuzzy Grammaticality Models: A Tool for Web Language Analysis

“…Rather the possibility of studying precise properties of grammar and exact rules becomes much more difficult… Thus, if we can maintain the concept of discrete grammaticality, we will be in a better position to pursue an understanding of grammatical universals. and Joos (1957) assumed that:…”