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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] BO and BO)
  • Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:17:42 +0100

Hi Isaac,

any theory that attempts to account for language by its
building blocks is worth considering. Language is, after
all, a combinatorial process. Morphemes + roots = words,
words + more words = meaningful clauses. Clauses + more
clauses = meaningful sentences. Sentences + more
sentences = meaningful paragraphs. Paragraphs + more
paragraphs = a story. So it would make sense that a
primitive languages' phonemes had conceptual meaning of
their own which could be combined to express more
meaningful concepts.

However, a number of things you say need addressing in
my mind:

1) Your ideas about man 'inventing' language are
demonstrably incorrect. Language is an instinct which
are hardwired to acquire from birth and, some argue,
perhaps even before. A good read on this subject is
Steven Pinker's 'The language instinct'. We have no more
control over our destiny to learn a language than a
spider does over its destiny to instinctively learn
how to spin a web or than a bee does to instinctively
learn how to make honey. Our language acquiring hardware
is built atop of our cognitive system and other animals
cannot learn our complex languages because they lack
the hardware to do it.

2) With the concepts you propose it is impossible to
make more complex meanings other than he/she/it is etc.
How can you possibly expect to make more complex
meanings out of the ingredients:

i) forms of the verb 'to be'
ii) personal pronouns
iii) concept of plurality

I was actually getting interested in your theory up to
the point where you presented this nonsense list of
ingredients.

3) There are still many surviving languages that have
their root system in tact. Can you provide any parallel
examples from living languages. I would start your
search in a place like this
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto?currentPage=all
An excellent example of what languages probably used to
be like.

4) The whole story seems to be lacking in any formal
description of what process you used to reach your
conclusions. Was there any scientific method used? What
inspired you to do this work? Are you absolute in your
conclusions? Or do you acknowledge that there are
problems with your model?

Yours respectfully

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science (thesis: concept driven machine translation using the
Aleppo codex)
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew









































































es probably used to
be like.

4) The whole story seems to be lacking in any formal
description of what process you used to reach your
conclusions. Was there any scientific method used? What
inspired you to do this work? Are you absolute in your
conclusions? Or do you acknowledge that there are
problems with your model?

Yours respectfully

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science (thesis: concept driven machine translation using the
Aleppo codex)
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew













































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