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370 Pages·2012·2.306 MB·English
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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. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Polytechnical University Publishing House, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation. Enquires concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the address above. 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

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.