[From: Bruce Nevin (Thu 920414 14:16:27)]
(Bill Powers (920514.0600) ) --
If it seems that there is structure in language, then a model that explains
this phenomenon should not contain that structure, but only components that
lead to phenomena which can be seen as having that structure. The apparent
structure should emerge from the underlying processes. Even to say that a
word can "modify" a phrase is to make the modification process part of the
model instead of emergent from it.
If it seems that there are words in language, then a model that explains
this phenomenon should not contain words, but only components that lead
to phenomena which can be seen as being words.
If it seems that there are word dependencies in language, then a model
that explains this phenomenon should not contain word dependencies, but
only components that lead to phenomena which can be seen as being word
dependencies.
If it seems that there are classes of words in language, defined by the
classes of other words that participate in dependencies with them
(dependency on dependency), then a model that explains this phenomenon
should not contain word classes, but only components that lead to
phenomena which can be seen as being such word classes.
If it seems that there are reduced forms of words in language, available
for more or less arbitrary (historically contingent) subclasses of words
under stateable conditions mostly based on redundancy, then a model that
explains this phenomenon should not contain reduced forms of words, but
only components that lead to phenomena which can be seen as being or
yielding reduced forms of words under such conditions.
I have no problem with any of this, and find it in good accord with all
that I have been proposing. Operator grammar needs no more than the
above.
A Harrisite evidently proposes "because I can perceive sequences of
operators and arguments, operators and arguments cause language." The
question becomes "what does control theory have to say about the way the
occurrance of operators and arguments produces language?"
If I have seemed to propose that operators and arguments cause language
then I have not expressed myself well. Help me out, please. Quote
something that I have said that seems to you to be inconsistent with
what I claim (above) to have been saying.
If it seems that certain words act as operators in relation to certain
other words that act as arguments, then a model that explains this
phenomenon should contain neither "operators" nor "arguments." To say that
operators "take" arguments is to put a box into the model that produces the
emergent phenomenon. . . .
Even to say that a
word can "modify" a phrase is to make the modification process part of the
model instead of emergent from it.
I have tried to avoid metaphors that seem to attribute agency to
language and to objects and relations in language, recognizing your
penchant for taking these expressions literally.
all accepted points of view from the past lead to questions that imply
an answer that can be laid out along a straight line.
This is a sweeping generalization indeed. However, it is a
generalization about all efforts "make progress toward understanding
some facet of human nature." Harris's work has been to disclose and
describe the informational structure in language. Interpretations as
regards human nature or how language came to be that way or how people
come to acquire language, and so on, have been purposely outside the
scope of his work. (The only exception, to my knowledge, is the brief
speculation on origins of language in the small _Language and
Information_ volume based on the Bampton Lectures, and the main point
thee is that it is not as hard as has been sometimes made out, because
the requisites for language are not as complex or sophisiticated or
different from other kinds of perception as has often been made out.)
This has not made for great popularity or overwhelming influence in the
field. It does, however, exempt his findings from your generalization.
Control theory can't
answer such questions (or validate the theory that led to them) because
control theory proposes that behavior is NOT produced by processes that can
be laid out along a straight line -- processes in which the outcome can be
considered separately from its antecedents.
Operator grammar does not propose how the operator-argument
informational structure found in language is produced. It is the
Generativists who reify grammatical generalizations as mental organs.
The structure is there. The interpretation of it, or an account of how
perceptual control systems bring it about, is up to us.
Bruce
bn@bbn.com