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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Hebrew and the Elements of Language
  • Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:18:51 +0100

KWR: Two questions:

1) Does the sequence of learning indicate importance in a mature
language, or can what was learned earlier become overshadowed by later
learning?

2) Does frequency = importance, i.e. what is used most commonly is
also the most important, or can there be a hierarchy of value so that
a linguistic element that is used less often yet can trump a
linguistic element that is used more often?

JCR: Very valid questions which deserve well thought
out answers. Obviously I am no expert but I will try
my best to give plausible explanations which fit a
workable framework of psycholinguistics and of
cognitive psychology.

I want you imagine the human brain as a computational
device. However, do confuse the brain with the inferior
devices which sit on our desktops and are able to
process one piece of information at a time (or two if
you have a duo). No, I want you to imagine our brains
as a massive network of reprogrammable circuits (built
by connections by neurons) with the ability to process
in parallel. Every stimulus you receive, audible or
visual, provokes the creation of a new circuit. The
recreation of that circuit results in recall. With this
massively complex network of reprogrammable circuits
you have the ability not only to build an unlimited
database of cognitive experiences but also the potential
ability to recall each and every one of them by merely
stimulating the reformation of the original circuit
associated with original cognitive stimulus.

I now want you to imagine a child that is born with a
blank mental state. The neurons in its brain are not
yet aligned into the complex network of a mature adult
with many cognitive experiences and 'memories'. It
merely has a blank slate combined a series of hard wired
circuits which make its body complete its day to day
functions and a set of hard wired circuits which
distinguish it as a 'human' baby. This set of hard
wired circuits equips the baby with everything it needs
in order to grow into a skilled adult with a provable
record of intelligent achievements, they equip the baby
with 'learning algorithms'. The most powerful of which
is the starting point in any learning cycle with starts
with zero knowledge, the inductive learning algorithm.

The inductive learning algorithm is the algorithm which
allows an agent to observe objects and make
generalisations. e.g. Baby sees 'Barny', the pet dog.
Barny is dog shaped, has four legs, barks and wags its
tail. Baby sees 'Freddy', the neighbours dog which also
is dog shaped, has four legs and barks. Baby makes
generalisation that all dog shaped objects have four
legs, bark and wag their tails. Baby, if old enough to
understand the word 'Barny' will probably point to dogs
in the park and say 'Barny' because "All dogs are
called Barny, right?".

As this baby travels through life its cognitive circuits
are being constantly stimulated and the blank slate it
was born with slowly matures into a complex network of
circuits representing its cognitive experiences.
However, these circuits are reprogrammable and as the
baby matures its database of dogs and dog associated
behaviour matures and is built upon the foundation of
its first experiences with Barny, their pet dog.
While the hardware for recalling cognitive experiences
is reprogrammable there will always be a trace of first
experiences which a more mature understanding will be
built on. So child A whose first experience with Barny
as the lovable playful animal is much more likely to
have a positive database of cognitive dog experiences
than child B who was bitten Barny and viciously barked
at the first time they met.

I hope that has partly answered question 1 which is by
no means a simple question and calls into play very
deep psychological factors which I have merely touched
upon.

Onto question 2:

What is important to a child is very different (apart
from the need to feed and drink etc.) from what is
important to an adult. The high frequency of the use
of names of close relatives and toys used by a child is
a strong indication of what is important to itself just
as the high frequency of the use of the words Yhwh,
Isreal, sons of [Isreal], king [of Isreal] is a strong
indication of what was important to the spiritually
mature minds of the prophets and authors of the Hebrew
corpus in general.

On the question of nouns vs' verbs etc. I ask you to
consider the following linguistic dilemma. Imagine you
have an ancient inscription to deal with. The inscription
is incomplete but the original read something like:

And Yhwh said to the King...

Which partial inscription would be more meaningful to
you:

a) ...Yhwh...to the King
b) And...said...

Partial inscription a) is the kind of thing you would
typically hear a child say in one of the early phases
of linguistic development and can be meaningful to
a mother. For more examples see of child like speech
see section 3 of
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/pinker.langacq.html

I'm not saying that version b) is completely
meaningless. A good linguist with good instincts could
extract a lot from it. I'm just saying that the object
oriented quality of languages makes sentence a)
prefereable and in a wider context far easier to
understand.

Consider the wider context:

And Yhwh said to the King 'Take the soldiers'

a)...Yhwh...to the King 'Take the soldiers'
b)And ... said ... 'Take the soldiers'

In version a) it is routine to guess the missing verb.
In version b) it is routine to guess the missing
somebody said to somebody but just who remains a
complete mystery.

KWR: An example of the first is when first learned, "Pretty is what looks
good", can it later change to "Pretty is as pretty does"? Upon
maturation the verb becomes more important than nouns?

JCR: It is of course the behaviour of objects that primarily
affects our cognitive understanding and therefore our
ultimate opinion of them. But without a noun to
associate behaviour to the actions become meaningless.
Just what are we to associate the cognitive experiences
of behaviour to?

KWP: Or what defines
(WP in Tanakh is not the looks, rather the action, namely these are
all creatures that fly, including locusts and bats?

JCR: Now this is an interesting question. You may be
interested in reading my language acquisition simulation
project, http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc . It touches
on psychological research into the stages of development
of categorisation by Rosch et al. In summary, there are
three basic types of object categorisation:

i) Superordinate
ii) Basic
iii) Subordinate

Taking dogs as an example. The basic category would be
'dogs', the superordinate category would be
'quadropeds' and a subordinate category could be
'dalmations'. Children get a grasp of basic
categorisation first, then superordinate and then
subordinate.

What you are referring to is a level of superordinate
categorisation and my suspicions are that it is not so
much the ability to fly as the possession of wings that
qualifies the object into this superordinate category.

In any case, again, just what will our Hebrews attach
the cognitive idea of flying to if they have no memory
of any objects that fly? Everything will therefore,
always reduce to objects (attributes and behaviour) in
any spoken human language.

This brings us onto a point of interest in Hebrew
linguistics. The concept of 'Yhwh'. Very real in the
minds of the authors of the Hebrew canon yet the most
abstract of concepts immaginable to the mind of a child.
What is a Yhwh? What shape does it have? What colour is
it? Where can I see one? Given the cognitive nature of
the foundation of our understanding it is easy to see
why cognitively driven Isrealites would rather serve a
Baal (which they could touch and see) than a Yhwh
which by and large they had to see and hear with eyes
and ears of faith.

Anyway, back onto discussion about reading courses (if
you are still interested). I once saw a small book
which made use of cognitive learning mechanisms by
teaching common words by associating them with pictures . The book progressed
into teaching small phrases by
associating them with cartoons with clear interactions
between the subject and the object. Any thoughts?
Feelings.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew - thesis1: concept driven machine translation
using the Aleppo codex http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc - thesis2: language
acquisition simulation












































































































hem with cartoons with clear interactions
between the subject and the object. Any thoughts?
Feelings.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew - thesis1: concept driven machine translation
using the Aleppo codex http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc - thesis2: language
acquisition simulation
































































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