Analytical linguistics

370 Pages·2012·2.306 MB·English

by  Ljubov Z. Sova

ANALYTICAL LINGUISTICS

by

Ljubov Z. Sova

Translation from Russian

St. Petersburg
Polytechnical University Publishing House
2012
Рус
BBK 81.2
S 56

Sova L. Z. Analytical Linguistics. Translation from Russian. /
L. Z. Sova. - Polytechnical University Publishing House,
2012, 368 p.

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Ljubov Z. Sova. Analytical Linguistics.
Editor-in-Chief V. A. Livšic.
Translation from Russian.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

ISBN 978-5-7422-3728-0 © Sova L. Z., 2012
© Polytechnical University
Publishing House, 2012.
PREFACE
More than forty years have passed since Analytical Linguistics
(Moscow, 1970) was written. It seems to me that it is still not understood,
possibly because it presents a new philological discipline at the point where
contemporary linguistics and constructive mathematics1 meet. Linguists are
almost totally unaware of constructive logic, although the experience of recent
decades has shown, for example, that without the use of its principles,
linguistic theories of artificial intelligence have no future. This monograph is
devoted to one such theory, a model of collective linguistic intuition and
speech activity. The book also deals with the principles of developing a
universal linguistic theory based on the ideas of constructive mathematics.2
Summarizing the materials that are presented in the monograph, it can
be said that Analytical Linguistics is a theory of language all the components
of which (morphemes, words, sentences, syntactic bonds, etc.) are presented as
dynamic objects (energeia-elements) derived from basic ergon-units as a result
of an analysis/synthesis procedure. By means of a dualization procedure, each
compound component is marked as dual, having a form and meaning, or sign
(a dual, between the parts of which a connection is established).
All designations of linguistic units are introduced only through the
procedures by means of which they can be “factored” into the simplest
constituents (analysis) and assembled from them (synthesis). This method is
postulated as universal (it is applied not only to such language objects as
words and bonds but also to linguistic ones, i. e., to definitions of concepts

1 Cf: Curry, H. B. Outlines of a Formalist Philosophy of Mathematics (Amsterdam,
1951) [280]; “Calculuses and Formal Systems,” Dialectica, 12, No. 3–4, 1958 [281];
·
Outlines of a Formalist Philosophy of Mathematics (Amsterdam London, 1970)
[282]; Maslov, Ju. S. “Ponjatie strogoj predstavimosti v obščej teorii isčislenij” [The
Concept of Strict Representability in a General Theory of Calculi], Trudy
Matematičeskogo instituta imeni V. A. Steklova, XCIII, 1967 [121] etc.
2 Cf. Also the following articles of mine: “Principy lingvističeskogo konstruktivizma”
[Principles of Linguistic Constructivism], “Analiz i sintez grammatičeskix kategorij s
pomoščju kompjutera” [Analysis and Synthesis of Grammatical Categories by
Computer”], “Lingvistika i modelirovanie processa poznanija” [Linguistics and
Modeling the Process of Cognition], and others: Sova, L. Z. Lingvistika sinteza
[Linguistics of Synthesis] (St. Petersburg, 2007) [193].
I
about them and to theories). As a result, it is possible to develop a linguistic
theory the way it is done in the exact sciences: theorems-constructs can be
deduced from elementary terms (axioms) within the framework of the given
formal theory.
In this work, the following have been adopted as axioms: Humboldt’s
thesis about the dynamic character of language, Saussure’s notion of language
elements as duals (signs) having form and meaning, and Hjelmslev’s theory
about the synthesis of linguistic entities from elementary unilateral non-signs
(figures).
Saussure’s and Hjelmslev’s theses about the dualistic nature of
language elements are applied not only to the “nodes” (words, sentences, etc.)
but are expanded to cover all manner of issues that linguists are concerned
with (grammatical connections at various levels, valency, transitivity,
syntactical structures, configurations, etc.) and also on the theories that
describe them.
The work done by the author to come up with a model of collective
linguistic intuition looks like this. The conceptual apparatus of any science is
reflected in the terminological dictionaries. The terms in them are systematized
according to a purely “external” attribute – an alphabet. This arrangement
reflects neither the logic of how the conceptual apparatus developed nor the
significance of each term in the system since, while the dictionary is being
compiled, concepts are considered not in relation to the process of their
development and formation in the science but as a result of that process,
recorded by the researcher when they are putting the dictionary together.
Using such an approach, the aggregate of the terms is a statical system
abstracted from the process of its development.
The conceptual apparatus may be looked upon not only statically but
also dynamically, in relation to that process as a result of which concepts are
deduced. For this purpose, when concepts are recorded, the dynamics of their
formation are described and the driving force of their evolution is revealed.
For example, having chosen the syntactical structure of the sentence as
a subject of research, it follows that one should elicit its internal
contradictions, reflected in various definitions, and show the dynamics of their
interaction in the process of formation of the given concept. It is necessary not
only to note the dual essence of the subject being studied (for example, with
reference to the form/content dichotomy, the syntactical structure acts as a
formal-semantic whole) but also establish precisely how each aspect of the
concept is extracted (the formal structure of the sentence separate from the
semantic). In terms of post-Saussurean linguistics, this means that an analysis
of the signifier and the signified, as parts of the syntactical structure of the
sentence, should be carried out.
II
One can then move on to the next stage, i. e., to show the unification
and removal of contradictions as the basis of a concept’s development in the
process of its synthesis. In the third stage, the results of the analysis/synthesis
process are compared with the initial data. The aim is to ascertain whether or
not the syntactical structure that has been obtained is identical to the natural
linguistic prototype from which the mold was taken and to which the
analysis/synthesis procedure was applied. In the event that the two are
identical, the procedures that have been carried out are recorded as dynamic
attributes of the original object (the concept obtained – the syntactical
structure of the sentence – acts as an entity, a formal and semantic structure,
as established by means of analysis/synthesis). If this is not the case, the
analysis/synthesis procedure is initiated from the start and continued until both
concepts are shown to be identical.
After the first cycle is completed, the second is begun: a new
contradiction in the concept is revealed (the analyzing procedure), the
synthesis of its components is recorded, and the concept is compared with the
prototype. As a result of the second cycle, there is a new definition of the
original concept, reinforced by the results of this procedure. After the second
cycle follows a third, a fourth and as many others as are needed until all of the
internal contradictions of the concept known to present-day science have been
reconciled.
The process, as it is described, moves in a spiral course, with the help of
which the development of a concept within the system of the conceptual
apparatus of a given science is simulated. Each whorl increases new
knowledge of the concept, in accordance with the attribute that is revealed in
it. For example, to define the concept of a word, as it exists in contemporary
linguistics, I had to carry out six whorls, the first based on the form/content
dichotomy; the second, on the nodes/bonds dichotomy; the third, on the
syntagmatic/paradigmatic dichotomy; the fourth, on the potency/realization
dichotomy; the fifth, on the language/speech dichotomy; the sixth, on the
discrete/non-discrete character of a language element’s structure.
As a result of these constructions, definitions of linguistic concepts
became dynamic. After that, the questions of their arrangement within the
system and the recording of an internal mechanism that would determine its
development and functioning arose. Its description is presented in the
monograph as a dynamic model of the conceptual apparatus of linguistics. In
order that the model turn out to be not only dynamic but also historical, the
oppositions determining the evolution of linguistics had to be arranged in the
order in which they first occurred in the history of the science.
In these constructions, if you draw on the experience of one
researcher, then you obtain one researcher’s dynamic model of the conceptual
apparatus. If, however, the research material is the experience of all linguists,
III
then the resultant system represents a model of the conceptual apparatus of
linguistics as a whole. In the latter case, it is possible to speak about a
simulation of collective linguistic intuition and about the discovery of a
universal linguistic theory as the sum total of procedures by means of which
languages are studied, their grammars are formed and descriptions are
produced that compare the phenomena of different languages in terms of one
and the same system of research techniques.
Such a range of questions is raised in Analytical Linguistics; the scope
of the problems, however, is not limited to ideas connected with simulating
intellect and the conceptual apparatus of linguistics. In the process of
constructing the designated model, consistent patterns are revealed that make it
possible to proceed to a discussion of many other “perennial” questions in the
sphere of philology: hypotheses about the formation and functioning of the
verbal apparatus, the origin of various grammatical categories, the genesis of
language and thought, etc.
For example, an analysis of the correlation between language elements
and definitions of concepts about them has shown that there exists in the
human consciousness a certain universal idea that determines our thinking. It
is described in Analytical Linguistics as the principle of parallelism between
the “world of ideas” and the “world of things”. An analysis of the precedents
from application of the parallelism principle affords an opportunity to
formulate a hypothesis about how language establishes two space-time
continuums – outside the brain and inside it. All language units are oriented
towards these two pairs of continuums, a unique system of coordinates that
accounts for the process of verbal thinking (our reflection of reality).3
This means that language does not simply register external space; it
also stands in contrast to internal space, the space of the brain (quasi-space), i.
e., it is the instrument that generates the analysis of objectively existing space
and “splits” it into two subspaces located outside the speaker and within them.
Both subspaces are objective entities, being “felt” by language (our feelings),
but each of them has its own specific nature, which is determined by the
attributes contained in its substance – the essence of the brain as opposed to
other forms of substance. 4

3 In order that models of artificial intelligence be not only functional but also
structured, they must be based on the very same system of coordinates. Otherwise, the
computer will not “learn how to think”, a machine translation from one language to
another will not be similar to a “human” one, etc.
4 Language registers this distinctly. Thus, in Russian every noun represents reality and
is definitely located somewhere, either within internal space or both within internal
and external space. The words for race, leap and category are examples of the first
type, and the words for hothouse, tavern, street sweeper, moustache and field are
examples of the second.
IV
In other words, there are two kinds of space, one within the brain and
the other outside it. Both of them exist objectively, beyond our will and faith.
Some realities (for example, the subjective experience of a specific person,
their thoughts and emotions) “live” in one space and “spill over” into the
other, along the way being converted into words and other products of verbal
reality. Other realities (tree, ocean) are represented only in external space. To
“possess” them, a person creates duplicates of them, images that he
“introducess” into his consciousness (internal space), where he “processes”
them.
Between the two worlds – the internal and the external – the principle
of parallelism obtains (that which is externally represented in the
consciousness). The parallelism is not absolute: there are realities that are only
in the consciousness or only in external space. It is customary to call the
former chimeras, images having no real prototype, figments of the
imagination, fictions, whims, artistic creations, verbal constructions (for
example, the images of whiteness, stand, from and other abstractions of
qualities, attributes, relationships, actions). The latter are called “things in
themselves”, indeterminate, intangible, unimaginable.
Realities produced by the imagination are often transposed into
external space – this is how the airplane, the ship and other human inventions
came into existence. Sometimes it happens the other way around: a person
focuses on the unknown, forms its image in their consciousness, compares it
with other objects of their own internal space and, on the basis of this analysis,
hands down a verdict – it is known (such an image already exists) or it is a
“journey into the unknown”. In this case, the signals that have been received
by the sensory receptors begin to be processed, and a new image is created.
Words, sentences and other results of speech activity, established by
means of aural or pictorial substantiation, are realities of the external world.
With the help of words, elements of the internal continuum (images) are
transported to the external world and become a part of it, just like all the other
realities that surround us.
There is also a parallelism between words in the external world and
their images in the internal world. Both the well-known phenomenon of the
pronunciation of words that are not “weighed down” by images and the
presence in the consciousness of amorphous images that are un-verbalized
point to the imperfection of its application. There is a complex relationship
between words and non-verbal realities in the external world, arising as a
result of the parallelism principle as it is applied to every pair of objects:
image – word, image – non-verbal reality, and word – non-verbal reality, as
well as to their images. This hierarchy is usually created by the speaker during
the process of verbal activity. For example, aside from the word, they
construct its image in internal speech. This happens likewise with the other
V
language elements that are associated with psychic reality of varying
complexity.
The reaction of verbal thought to time is no less important for the
differentiation of language elements. As it does with space, language “splits”
time into external and internal. External time passes independent of the
speaker and determines, figuratively speaking, the lifespan of realities. Internal
time, or quasi-time, is the time it takes for intra-cerebral processes to transpire,
in particular those of verbal thought.5
Superimposing the temporal dichotomy on the spatial dichotomy
provides an opportunity to classify words in such a way as to “teach” a
computer the human perception of meaning.6 In the process of “teaching” the
computer (while working, for example, with homonymity and
polysemanticity), one manages to understand what language meaning is, to
what extent it is preserved in inter-lingual and intra-lingual translation, and
how the categories develop in ontogeny and phylogeny.
The principles of parallelism and dualization in relation to language
objects are interconnected. In either case, in the process of verbal activity, the
brain performs two operations: it divides objects into external / internal and
duplicates / splits them. Duplication is the operation underlying the principle
of parallelism. In dualization, language objects are divided in two. It turns out
that scrutiny of an object in relation to its internal structure involves
application of the dualization principle, and investigation of the same object in
relation to its “external environment” (for example to a higher level of
abstraction) leads to use of the parallelism principle, which is fundamental
when it comes to constructing definitions of language objects. In both cases, it

5 As a result of the recording of external time and its attributes, a language speaker
divides the realities surrounding him into animate and inanimate, and “intra-cerebral”
realities into those that are involved in the processes that take place in external time
and those that do not have that quality, i. e., that occur only in internal time, the time
of the thinking process or, as it is said, in the individual consciousness.
6 In an explicit form, the classification of language elements in accordance with the
principle indicated has been preserved in many African languages. Its detailed
description in the Bantu languages can be found in my monographs Afrikanistika i
évoljucionnaja lingvistika [Africanistics and Evolutional Linguistics] (St. Petersburg,
2008); and Évoljucija grammatičeskogo stroja v jazykax Bantu [The Evolution of the
Grammatical Structure in the Bantu Languages] (Leningrad, 1987). It is implicitly
present in all languages. The results of its manifestations in the Russian language are
described in my articles “Denotatnaja klassifikacija russkix suščestvitel’nyx” [A
Denotative Classification of Russian Nouns], “Lingvistika i modelirovanije processa
poznanija” [Linguistics and Modeling the Process of Cognition], “Éksplikacija
mexanizma russkogo myšlenija c pomošč’ju komp’jutera” [A Computer-Aided
Explication of the Russian Thought Mechanism] and others: Sova, L. Z. Lingvistika
sinteza [Linguistics of Synthesis] (St. Petersburg, 2007).
VI
is a matter of the sacramental duality of objects and their division into
“internal / external”.
It is possible that the term “binary code” also came about as a result of
intuitive observation of the two-level nature of the brain’s spatial-temporal
structure and the phenomenon in question, including the principles of
parallelism and dualization, is nothing more or less than a reflection of the bi-
hemispheric configuration of the brain (the division of the brain into right and
left hemispheres). In any case, the dual (sign) nature, for example, of the word
or the sentence in Analytical Linguistics is an attribute not of the object (the
word, the sentence) but of the subject (the language speaker, their brain), and,
therefore, a description of language units in the form of duals and signs, is
nothing more than a methodological principle. But the question remains
whether it reveals the “bi-hemispheric” nature of language units or injects into
the description of objects the attributes of a subject.7
The construction of a linguistic theory by using the methods
developed in Analytical Linguistics makes it possible to create a functional
model of the verbal areas of the brain. Thus, taking into account evidence
explicating that there are four subsystems of linguistic thought (external time
and space, internal time and space), it can be supposed that there are also four
corresponding mechanisms in the structure of the brain, each of which is
“responsible” for the analysis/synthesis processes that occur in the
corresponding subsystem and for registration of the results that are obtained
within it.
Apart from these mechanisms, there are a number of systems that are
involved in linguistic thought and that likewise have an effect on what is
described, although with other substances. For example, there is a system that
is involved in processing signals that come from a person’s internal organs and
synthesizing the affective meaning of a word. There is also a system that
works with the attributes of an object (internal and external) as the subsystems
described above handle time and space.
All of the subsystems form a hierarchy, at the head of which is the
mechanism that correlates all of the subsystems dependent on it and controls
them. The control module performs analysis/synthesis of the images produced
as a result of comparing any pair of images at a lower level of the hierarchy.
For example, it combines spatial and temporal images in the spatiotemporal
ones and then connects the spatiotemporal images with the affective meanings
of the words, etc.

7 If our brain were tripartite (not two hemispheres, but three sections), it would seem
that language units would be perceived by researchers not as signs consisting of
signifieds / signifiers and the connections between them (“triangles”) but as
“hexagons”, each of which has three parts and three links between them. The diversity
that arises in this case is characterized by different kinds of modal logic.
VII
This hierarchy serves to produce signifieds. A similar structure is
revealed while signifiers are being analyzed. Both generating structures are
incorporated into the unique “factory” of the signifieds and the signifiers. As a
result, the brain can be imagined as a system composed of modules, each of
which specializes in creating images of a certain type.
For example, one subsystem forms spatial images; a second, temporal
images; a third, articulemes; etc.8 These images are conjoined in various
sequences and various aggregates depending on the objectives that are formed
by cogitation during the process of perception and practical activity.9

8 There are many facts that point to the existence in the brain of a hierarchy of
mechanisms, each of which specializes in creating images of a certain type. For
example, it can be assumed that the stem regions of the brain are responsible for
orientation in external time/space and also for generation of the energy tonicity
required for speech activity. Data about semantic aphasia helps to establish that the
internal space of signifieds is dependent on tertiary parieto-occipital regions of the left
hemisphere and the lower regions of the promoter area (cf. cases of telegraphese). The
after-effects of amnesic, afferent and kinesthetic aphasias indicate a connection
between the analysis/synthesis mechanism of the internal space of signifiers and the
posterior tertius of the gyrus temporalis transversus anterior and also the postcentral
regions of the language zones.
9 1. In the process of verbal reflection, a person divides all phenomena in the
surrounding reality into two classes: nodes (objects, subjects, things, arguments) and
links (signs, properties, attributes, relationships, predicates). There is no such division
in objective reality: objects exist in time and space only along with their intrinsic
attributes, and attributes, only as located on definite objects.
In the situation described by means of the sentence, “The tree is turning green”,
there are not two phenomena separate from each other in time and space – the subject
“tree” and the attribute “is turning green”. There is a certain spatiotemporal whole.
Fixing this whole through the use of language, by virtue of the unidirectionality of the
speech process in time, first the possessor of the attribute is registered and then the
attribute (or vice versa). Thus, by means of the temporal axis of the speech process, it
breaks apart that whole, which in the contextual time and space acts as one and
indivisible.
The peculiarity of registering the situation in this way becomes clear when
using other means of describing the given situation. For example, it is difficult to
imagine a painting in which, on the right, something turning green is depicted and, on
the left, a tree that will begin to turn green, although the spatial sequencing of the
elements in the painting would duplicate the temporal sequencing of the verbal
elements in the sentence, “The tree is turning green.” The subject and the attribute,
separated from each other in the verbal image, turn out to be merged in the painting.
Language acts as a means of separating time from space and object from
attribute, as well as a means of breaking down what is essentially a single phenomenon
into two dissimilar components: object and attribute. This breakdown is apparently not
contingent upon objective reality but is due only to the properties of the instrument
VIII