http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini
D - and he influenced Chomsky's works on linguistics.
What is amazing is that his contributions were basically allowed to lie fallow for so long.
He is known for his Sanskrit grammar, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules[2] of Sanskrit morphology, syntax and semantics in the grammar known as Ashtadhyayi (अष्टाध्यायी Aṣṭādhyāyī, meaning "eight chapters"), the foundational text of the grammatical branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of Vedic religion.
----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure (French pronunciation: [fɛʁdinɑ̃ də sosyʁ]) (26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. Saussure is widely considered to be one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics,[1][2] though modern linguists and philosophers of language all but universally consider his ideas outdated, inadequate, and misunderstood or deliberately distorted by literary theorists.[3][4] [5][6][7][8] [9][10][11][12][13][14] Saussure's concepts receive little or no attention in modern linguistic textbooks.[15] Saussure's concepts—particularly semiotics—have nonetheless exterted a monumental impact throughout the humanities and social sciences.
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of cultural sign processes (semiosis), analogy, metaphor, signification and communication, signs and symbols. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which in its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Semiotics is usually divided into three branches, which include:
* Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning
* Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
* Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz#Symbolic_thought
D: a supergenius friend of mine, a "God in ruins" to borrow from Emerson, keeps all his notes in coded logic form.
Hopefully, I'll manage to ground a language firmly enough in such precise terms that notation will be optional.
Note: I'm revising musical notation to get back into piano.
It's looking like a vertically scrolling system that matches the setup of a piano. I'll be tweaking the chromatic notation system.
I see why so many musicians don't /can't / won't use our standard musical notation system. It is far removed from the playing of music itself by a number of mental stps.
CVN. Seven. 7. An octave of 7 whole notes lends itself to a naming convention derived from consonant voiced/voiceless pairs.
Chords could be expressed in my variant-prime # scheme for compound concepts. (See earlier blogs.)
The Ashtadhyayi is one of the earliest known grammars of Sanskrit, although he refers to previous texts like the Unadisutra, Dhatupatha, and Ganapatha.[2] It is the earliest known work on descriptive linguistics and generative linguistics, and together with the work of his immediate predecessors (Nirukta, Nighantu, Pratishakyas) stands at the beginning of the history of linguistics itself.
------
I imagine the fact that his book is in Sanskrit served as a barrier to further dissemination.
Pāṇini's work became known in 19th century Europe, where it influenced modern linguistics initially through Franz Bopp, who mainly looked at Pāṇini. Subsequently, a wider body of work influenced Sanskrit scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Leonard Bloomfield, and Roman Jakobson. Frits Staal discussed the impact of Indian ideas on language in Europe.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
musical beats, 4/4 time and syllable stress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28music%29
In music that progresses regularly in 4/4 time, counted as "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4...", the first beat of the bar (down-beat) is usually the strongest accent in the melody and the likeliest place for a chord change, the third is the next strongest: these are "on" beats. The second and fourth are weaker - the "off-beats". Subdivisions (like eighth notes) that fall between the pulse beats are even weaker and these, if used frequently in a rhythm, can also make it "off-beat".[7] The effect can be easily simulated by evenly and repeatedly counting to four:
D: Well it lines up with some English words, at least with the 3rd of 4 syllables containing the primary stress.
http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/8wspatterns.htm
Four Syllable - Second Syllable Stressed
Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples:
psyCHOLogy
eVAporate
cerTIficate
Four Syllable - Third Syllable Stressed
Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples:
poliTIcian
indiVIdual
repuTAtion
In music that progresses regularly in 4/4 time, counted as "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4...", the first beat of the bar (down-beat) is usually the strongest accent in the melody and the likeliest place for a chord change, the third is the next strongest: these are "on" beats. The second and fourth are weaker - the "off-beats". Subdivisions (like eighth notes) that fall between the pulse beats are even weaker and these, if used frequently in a rhythm, can also make it "off-beat".[7] The effect can be easily simulated by evenly and repeatedly counting to four:
D: Well it lines up with some English words, at least with the 3rd of 4 syllables containing the primary stress.
http://esl.about.com/od/speakingenglish/a/8wspatterns.htm
Four Syllable - Second Syllable Stressed
Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples:
psyCHOLogy
eVAporate
cerTIficate
Four Syllable - Third Syllable Stressed
Listen to the general pattern and these specific examples:
poliTIcian
indiVIdual
repuTAtion
Sunday, January 9, 2011
babies process language same as adults
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110107094908.htm
"Our study shows that the neural machinery used by adults to understand words is already functional when words are first being learned," said Halgren, "This basic process seems to embody the process whereby words are understood, as well as the context for learning new words." The researchers say their results have implications for future studies, for example development of diagnostic tests based on brain imaging which could indicate whether a baby has healthy word understanding even before speaking, enabling early screening for language disabilities or autism.
"Our study shows that the neural machinery used by adults to understand words is already functional when words are first being learned," said Halgren, "This basic process seems to embody the process whereby words are understood, as well as the context for learning new words." The researchers say their results have implications for future studies, for example development of diagnostic tests based on brain imaging which could indicate whether a baby has healthy word understanding even before speaking, enabling early screening for language disabilities or autism.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
twitter keepin' regional dialects alive n well
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110106171011.htm
In northern California, something that's cool is "koo" in tweets, while in southern California, it's "coo." In many cities, something is "sumthin," but tweets in New York City favor "suttin." While many of us might complain in tweets of being "very" tired, people in northern California tend to be "hella" tired, New Yorkers "deadass" tired and Angelenos are simply tired "af."
The "af" is an acronym that, like many others on Twitter, stands for a vulgarity. LOL is a commonly used acronym for "laughing out loud," but Twitterers in Washington, D.C., seem to have an affinity for the cruder LLS.
In northern California, something that's cool is "koo" in tweets, while in southern California, it's "coo." In many cities, something is "sumthin," but tweets in New York City favor "suttin." While many of us might complain in tweets of being "very" tired, people in northern California tend to be "hella" tired, New Yorkers "deadass" tired and Angelenos are simply tired "af."
The "af" is an acronym that, like many others on Twitter, stands for a vulgarity. LOL is a commonly used acronym for "laughing out loud," but Twitterers in Washington, D.C., seem to have an affinity for the cruder LLS.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Globe and Mail verb fail
-----
Plead.
I've been watching this verb, past tense, get simplified for years.
To plead. Did plead. Pled.
This is one I used to struggle with regularly in my day-to-day work, until I got used to it.
Someone pled guilty or pleaded guilty?
The rule for us in journalism is pleaded. The lawyers like pled.
D - I see how the author could be confused.
Plead sounds like Plea-ed. Like past tense.
But it is wrong.
Not sure about a past tense?
Just say did + XYZ.
Friday, December 24, 2010
dog knows 1000 words
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/23/worlds-smartest-dog-knows-words/
Watch Pilley give Chaser some impressively complex commands -- combining three verbs with three nouns -- in the video below. She understands the verbs “nose,” “get” and “paw.” Her reward is playtime with “Blue,” a little ball she chases across the room. For a whole collection of Chaser videos, click here.
She learned common nouns that represented categories, such as “ball,” and she learned to infer the names of objects by their association with other objects.
-----
Heck, that is Ogden's Basic English.
I am curious if any abstracts were taught.
Watch Pilley give Chaser some impressively complex commands -- combining three verbs with three nouns -- in the video below. She understands the verbs “nose,” “get” and “paw.” Her reward is playtime with “Blue,” a little ball she chases across the room. For a whole collection of Chaser videos, click here.
She learned common nouns that represented categories, such as “ball,” and she learned to infer the names of objects by their association with other objects.
-----
Heck, that is Ogden's Basic English.
I am curious if any abstracts were taught.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
dyslexia. brain site. about reading problems.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101220163059.htm
Did you know that 10 in 1 people are dyslexic? 10 in 1! <:
Dyslexia, a brain-based learning disability that impairs a person's ability to read, affects 5 to 17 percent of U.S. children. Affected children's ability to improve their reading skills varies greatly, with about one-fifth able to benefit from interventions and develop adequate reading skills by adulthood. But up to this point, what happens in this brain to allow for this improvement remained unknown.
http://www.suite101.com/content/types-of-dyslexia-a99334
D - Written, spoken and both.
D - I think those who are dyslexic are often also innumerate.
The complexity of a language's orthography or spelling system – formally, its orthographic depth – has a direct impact on how difficult it is to learn to read that language. English has a comparatively deep orthography within the Latin alphabet writing system, with a complex orthographic structure that employs spelling patterns at several levels: principally, letter-sound correspondences, syllables, and morphemes. Other languages, such as Spanish, have alphabetic orthographies that employ only letter-sound correspondences, so-called shallow orthographies. It is relatively easy to learn to read languages like Spanish; it is much more difficult to learn to read languages with more complex orthographies, such as English.[48] Logographic writing systems, notably Japanese and Chinese characters, have a purer direct relationship between the sound of a word and the representative visual symbols, which pose a different type of dyslexic difficulty
For languages with relatively deep orthographies, such as English, French, Arabic or Hebrew, new readers have a great deal more difficulty learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read more slowly.
----
Aside:
D - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091014130704.htm
D: brain basis for literacy.
In today's edition of Nature, researchers from the UK, Spain and Colombia describe a study working with an unusual cohort: former guerrillas in Colombia who are re-integrating into mainstream society and learning to read for the first time as adults.
"Separating out changes in our brains caused by learning to read has so far proven almost impossible because of other confounding factors," explains Professor Cathy Price, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at UCL (University College London). "Working with the former Colombia guerrillas has provided a unique opportunity to see how the brain develops when reading skills are acquired."
---------------
Aside:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523090044.htm
D - predict language and math ability by finger length ratio.
They then divided the length of the index finger by that of the ring finger -- to calculate the child's digit ratio.
When they compared this ratio to the children's SAT scores, they found that a smaller ratio (i.e. a longer ring finger and therefore greater prenatal exposure to testosterone) meant a larger difference between ability in maths and literacy, favouring numeracy relative to literacy.
When they looked at boy's and girl's performance separately, the researchers found a clear link between high prenatal testosterone exposure, as measured by digit ratio, and higher numeracy SAT scores in males.
They also found a link between low prenatal testosterone exposure, which resulted in a shorter ring finger compared with the index finger, and higher literacy SAT scores for girls.
---
http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/manning.html
D: looks like competition between the sexes for ideal genes.
Um, my fingers say I'm supposed to be hyperaggressive... hmm.
----
Aside: my premise for the vowel system for CVN (see other blog) was wrong.
I just never looked at it closely. I just assumed the progression of vowel universality was
1) AUI - universal
2) Italian-style ah eh ee oh oo was next - Espo style.
But my design premise is NOT what most language backgrounds can handle first.
It is, first and foremost, accessible to Chinese speakers.
When I finally looked at the Mandarin vowels, I discovered they do no match 2).
http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html
D - I find the match of vowel letters to sounds confusing.
Don't forget the dual vowels.
13 compound finals: ai, ao, ei, ia, iao, ie, iou, ou, ua, uai, üe, uei, uo
a - far, father
e - send, very
i - sit, it
yi - machine
o - saw, all.
u - too, loop
u diacritic - german u. yeeee/yuuu?
The German long "ü" and short "ü" are two of the hardest sounds for the English speaker to master, as there are no direct equivalents in the English language. (ü ) similar to ew in pew; more like ue in French rue.
D - sorry, this one gets chopped. An Anglo is gonna get killed by it.
D - OK I cannot hear the difference between the A in father and all.
D - the sites don't seem to agree with each other on vowel sounds.
Anyway, if I need to discard 1 vowel and collapse 2 others together, that does not
leave much.
The 'intermediate' level of CVN with vowel diphthongs will likely be the default version for Chinese Speakers.
Not that the initial M and er final get discarded.
The goal is to have words and sounds that clearly indicate word boundaries.
That means words cannot appear the same both forward and in reverse.
There must be word-initial ONLY (and mid) consonants, and word-final ONLY.
Half the Cantonese word-final consonants get rejected for this reason.
This leaves the tricky case of M.
In word initial position it precludes word-final.
And Mandarin speakers can use it word-initial but not word-final - at least easily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Vowels_and_final_consonants
D - so why would I want M word-final only?
I end up with more possible one syllable words.
Though this is misleading, since the basic structure of CVN (formerly Decimese) is
1) CV 'core' - this resembles the Espo system of lacking a grammatical element
2) a word -final nasal consonant then denotes grammar - noun, verb, adjective, adverb
Word order takes care of the rest.
Again, I CAN make a system that would allow only -N and -NG word final, with M- in word initial position. We'll see.
Also note that groups of sounds like PBM are the same lip-reading position as visemes. I'd really like to retain a simple system to port over my Visemese to CVN, as with my one blog entry on Decimese.
Mandarin syllables. There are 22 initials and 35 finals. Add the four tones, and you get a theoretical maximum of 3080 possible syllables. But, as you can see from the chart, only about two-thirds of the possibilities are actually used, which means that Mandarin uses only around 2000 syllables (I didn't count).
http://www.pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html
D: since Mandarin speakers say two words back to back that are structured CV and M, then saying CVM (consonant -vowel- M nasal consonant) is not much of a stretch for them.
They'll also hafta just use the 'empty space' in their syllable chart. Again, not too hard - I hope.
The finals m and ng can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.
D - interesting... M, N, NG as a set of 3 core denoters?
Did you know that 10 in 1 people are dyslexic? 10 in 1! <:
Dyslexia, a brain-based learning disability that impairs a person's ability to read, affects 5 to 17 percent of U.S. children. Affected children's ability to improve their reading skills varies greatly, with about one-fifth able to benefit from interventions and develop adequate reading skills by adulthood. But up to this point, what happens in this brain to allow for this improvement remained unknown.
http://www.suite101.com/content/types-of-dyslexia-a99334
D - Written, spoken and both.
D - I think those who are dyslexic are often also innumerate.
The complexity of a language's orthography or spelling system – formally, its orthographic depth – has a direct impact on how difficult it is to learn to read that language. English has a comparatively deep orthography within the Latin alphabet writing system, with a complex orthographic structure that employs spelling patterns at several levels: principally, letter-sound correspondences, syllables, and morphemes. Other languages, such as Spanish, have alphabetic orthographies that employ only letter-sound correspondences, so-called shallow orthographies. It is relatively easy to learn to read languages like Spanish; it is much more difficult to learn to read languages with more complex orthographies, such as English.[48] Logographic writing systems, notably Japanese and Chinese characters, have a purer direct relationship between the sound of a word and the representative visual symbols, which pose a different type of dyslexic difficulty
For languages with relatively deep orthographies, such as English, French, Arabic or Hebrew, new readers have a great deal more difficulty learning to decode words. As a result, children learn to read more slowly.
----
Aside:
D - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091014130704.htm
D: brain basis for literacy.
In today's edition of Nature, researchers from the UK, Spain and Colombia describe a study working with an unusual cohort: former guerrillas in Colombia who are re-integrating into mainstream society and learning to read for the first time as adults.
"Separating out changes in our brains caused by learning to read has so far proven almost impossible because of other confounding factors," explains Professor Cathy Price, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at UCL (University College London). "Working with the former Colombia guerrillas has provided a unique opportunity to see how the brain develops when reading skills are acquired."
---------------
Aside:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523090044.htm
D - predict language and math ability by finger length ratio.
They then divided the length of the index finger by that of the ring finger -- to calculate the child's digit ratio.
When they compared this ratio to the children's SAT scores, they found that a smaller ratio (i.e. a longer ring finger and therefore greater prenatal exposure to testosterone) meant a larger difference between ability in maths and literacy, favouring numeracy relative to literacy.
When they looked at boy's and girl's performance separately, the researchers found a clear link between high prenatal testosterone exposure, as measured by digit ratio, and higher numeracy SAT scores in males.
They also found a link between low prenatal testosterone exposure, which resulted in a shorter ring finger compared with the index finger, and higher literacy SAT scores for girls.
---
http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/manning.html
D: looks like competition between the sexes for ideal genes.
Um, my fingers say I'm supposed to be hyperaggressive... hmm.
----
Aside: my premise for the vowel system for CVN (see other blog) was wrong.
I just never looked at it closely. I just assumed the progression of vowel universality was
1) AUI - universal
2) Italian-style ah eh ee oh oo was next - Espo style.
But my design premise is NOT what most language backgrounds can handle first.
It is, first and foremost, accessible to Chinese speakers.
When I finally looked at the Mandarin vowels, I discovered they do no match 2).
http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen8p.html
D - I find the match of vowel letters to sounds confusing.
Don't forget the dual vowels.
13 compound finals: ai, ao, ei, ia, iao, ie, iou, ou, ua, uai, üe, uei, uo
a - far, father
e - send, very
i - sit, it
yi - machine
o - saw, all.
u - too, loop
u diacritic - german u. yeeee/yuuu?
The German long "ü" and short "ü" are two of the hardest sounds for the English speaker to master, as there are no direct equivalents in the English language. (ü ) similar to ew in pew; more like ue in French rue.
D - sorry, this one gets chopped. An Anglo is gonna get killed by it.
D - OK I cannot hear the difference between the A in father and all.
D - the sites don't seem to agree with each other on vowel sounds.
Anyway, if I need to discard 1 vowel and collapse 2 others together, that does not
leave much.
The 'intermediate' level of CVN with vowel diphthongs will likely be the default version for Chinese Speakers.
Not that the initial M and er final get discarded.
The goal is to have words and sounds that clearly indicate word boundaries.
That means words cannot appear the same both forward and in reverse.
There must be word-initial ONLY (and mid) consonants, and word-final ONLY.
Half the Cantonese word-final consonants get rejected for this reason.
This leaves the tricky case of M.
In word initial position it precludes word-final.
And Mandarin speakers can use it word-initial but not word-final - at least easily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology#Vowels_and_final_consonants
D - so why would I want M word-final only?
I end up with more possible one syllable words.
Though this is misleading, since the basic structure of CVN (formerly Decimese) is
1) CV 'core' - this resembles the Espo system of lacking a grammatical element
2) a word -final nasal consonant then denotes grammar - noun, verb, adjective, adverb
Word order takes care of the rest.
Again, I CAN make a system that would allow only -N and -NG word final, with M- in word initial position. We'll see.
Also note that groups of sounds like PBM are the same lip-reading position as visemes. I'd really like to retain a simple system to port over my Visemese to CVN, as with my one blog entry on Decimese.
Mandarin syllables. There are 22 initials and 35 finals. Add the four tones, and you get a theoretical maximum of 3080 possible syllables. But, as you can see from the chart, only about two-thirds of the possibilities are actually used, which means that Mandarin uses only around 2000 syllables (I didn't count).
http://www.pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html
D: since Mandarin speakers say two words back to back that are structured CV and M, then saying CVM (consonant -vowel- M nasal consonant) is not much of a stretch for them.
They'll also hafta just use the 'empty space' in their syllable chart. Again, not too hard - I hope.
The finals m and ng can only be used as standalone nasal syllables.
D - interesting... M, N, NG as a set of 3 core denoters?
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