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[lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)]

>From cbmvax!uunet!pica.army.mil!protin Fri Jun 14 18:06:38 1991
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Date:     Fri, 14 Jun 91 12:02:39 EDT
From: "Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) <cbmvax!uunet!pica.army.mil!protin>
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com>
Subject:  Re:  identity and general semantics
Message-Id:  <9106141202.aa13844@COR4.PICA.ARMY.MIL>
Status: RO

Folks,
    I will try to be concise and polite.  While I accept perfectly well
that "you can not step in the same river once" (because it is changing
while you step in it and is therefore not the same river), I feel that
argument is incongruous with the notion of language.  Language is learned
as we match sufficiently similar utterances with the common properties
of many distinct and varied situations.  Thus any concept of equality
within the domain of language must anyway include a measure of acceptable
variability.
    As bizarre as it must seem, the collected evidence is that each person 
re-invents language when he/she/it learns his/her/its first language.
It is unclear whether this personal development parallels the evolution
of language within society and I am unsure if the development is the same
for an adult learning language for the first time as it is for a child.
The first stage of that development in chilren is to tie utterances
to single concepts, mostly physical objects, like "mommy", "food",
"up" (not an object, most likely an event).  Then comes the simple
juxtapositioning of words (recognized fragments of the total utterance)
to convey the 'natural' joining of concepts, like "mommy up" (for
"hey you, carry me").  At this stage word order is not recognized as
important, the words "mommy", "me", "carry" are spoken in any order
since the only 'sensible' meaning is for the mother to carry the child.
Only when inappropriate word orders allow fluent listeners to enact
the 'perverse' action, like "me feed mommy", do the learning children
start to develop grammar.  It is not obvious to me what internal methods
are used to model grammar.
    I consider the distinction between names and other predicates to
an advanced feature of language, just as I feel that the place structure
of predicates is.  However, I have to set down a Xerox of some memo,
take a Kleenex to wipe the tear from my eye, and take an Aspirin with
my Coke, because I realize that we only minimally value these linguisitc
advances. :-) 

      thank you,
    Arthur Protin


Arthur Protin <protin@pica.army.mil>
These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss
or this installation.