Atheism

Originally posted by Mindship
Actually, it wasn't until this page that I started to really grasp what both of you were saying.

I never knew atheism had such nuance. 😉

No no, don't let us fool you. It's all about elitist posturing in front of Christians and finding good places to rant.

Originally posted by inimalist
lol, jeez... 😮

and, the most likely answer is, if you can't understand what I'm saying, I'm probably talking shit

I'm just like Little Wayne

I'll deflate you a bit, at least. I was more referring to your profession, and the knowledge that comes with it. It is specialized and goes a bit beyond even an informed layman's knowledge. Every now and then when you bust out some point based on findings within your field, I realize I'm a bit out of my element.

Or you're a hyperion god who is smarter than all of us. One of those two.

🙄

well if he's the hyperion god then he'll smite you for doubting him lol

Originally posted by inimalist
however, you have given further evidence for chomsky's x bar theory and phrase structure rules

God damn x-bar theories of syntax. Chomsky's being the most famous. I f*cking hate them with a passion I can barely describe.

Sorry, I was browsing this thread and had missed this. It stirred rage inside me that I needed to vent publicly.

Originally posted by Digi
God damn x-bar theories of syntax. Chomsky's being the most famous. I f*cking hate them with a passion I can barely describe.

Sorry, I was browsing this thread and had missed this. It stirred rage inside me that I needed to vent publicly.

why? they tend to work out

chomsky's linguistics are better than his politics

Originally posted by inimalist
why? they tend to work out

chomsky's linguistics are better than his politics

They tend to work out in a limited number of languages. Chomsky was never able to create one that sufficiently mapped several languages with abnormal structure to them, while maintaining the ability to map "regular" languages.

My hatred mostly stems from a college linguistics project I unwillingly accepted. It centered around a paper that attempted to universalize an x-bar theory of syntax. It first had to go into the flaws in Chomsky's highly-regarded system, the flaws that were held into later versions (as well as those who amended Chomsky's theories with their own) then attempted to correct them. My project was to provide a synopsis of the critique, then find where the proposed theory still fell short in some areas. It was hell, and easily the most difficult thing I researched in college. My final paper read more like an intricate math proof than anything having to do with language.

The most infuriating part was that there was a brief period where I actually understood what I was writing about (after countless read-throughs and diagrams to help myself), yet there was no one to share it with. "Hey! Did you know that the phrase Birds eat worms contains no less than twelve nonterminals in certain lexicality-observing syntax theories! Add in often-neglected categories such as tense and negative particle and the same phrase jumps to a minimum of fifteen nonterminals." ...that kind of stuff didn't go over too well in conversation. But, given the work I put into it, I wanted to tell someone. Anymore, I barely recognize the above phrase or its meaning, though its paraphrased from my paper.

In all, a frustrating endeavor. **** x-bar.

Digi

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, and I even looked it up. 😮

Originally posted by Digi
They tend to work out in a limited number of languages. Chomsky was never able to create one that sufficiently mapped several languages with abnormal structure to them, while maintaining the ability to map "regular" languages.

My hatred mostly stems from a college linguistics project I unwillingly accepted. It centered around a paper that attempted to universalize an x-bar theory of syntax. It first had to go into the flaws in Chomsky's highly-regarded system, the flaws that were held into later versions (as well as those who amended Chomsky's theories with their own) then attempted to correct them. My project was to provide a synopsis of the critique, then find where the proposed theory still fell short in some areas. It was hell, and easily the most difficult thing I researched in college. My final paper read more like an intricate math proof than anything having to do with language.

The most infuriating part was that there was a brief period where I actually understood what I was writing about (after countless read-throughs and diagrams to help myself), yet there was no one to share it with. "Hey! Did you know that the phrase Birds eat worms contains no less than twelve nonterminals in certain lexicality-observing syntax theories! Add in often-neglected categories such as tense and negative particle and the same phrase jumps to a minimum of fifteen nonterminals." ...that kind of stuff didn't go over too well in conversation. But, given the work I put into it, I wanted to tell someone. Anymore, I barely recognize the above phrase or its meaning, though its paraphrased from my paper.

In all, a frustrating endeavor. **** x-bar.

just throwing it out there, but darwinean evolution didn't universally account for all types of variation among animals 😉

I hear what you are saying, I actually got chomsky through a series of psycholinguistics courses, so the very literal x-bar stuff was taught as being incomplete. The big thing to take away from chomsky is the idea of certain lexical parameters that are likely biological. While he may not have mapped it perfectly, there are common themes that do underly all languages, including sign, especially dealing with SVO, VSO, etc, or at the very least, underly certain linguistic categories.

I love language, so if you want we can keep going on this, but it is really off topic.

Originally posted by inimalist
just throwing it out there, but darwinean evolution didn't universally account for all types of variation among animals 😉

I hear what you are saying, I actually got chomsky through a series of psycholinguistics courses, so the very literal x-bar stuff was taught as being incomplete. The big thing to take away from chomsky is the idea of certain lexical parameters that are likely biological. While he may not have mapped it perfectly, there are common themes that do underly all languages, including sign, especially dealing with SVO, VSO, etc, or at the very least, underly certain linguistic categories.

I love language, so if you want we can keep going on this, but it is really off topic.

Nobody is/was talking in this thread for at least a few days, it's not exactly spam, and I'm a mod, so I'm sure we can let the off-topic-ness of it slide. If anyone wants to steer us back to religion, we're not stopping it.

I'm actually unaware of the points you mentioned though concerning syntax and biology. We were delving into the theory itself more so than the societal or biological implications of it. The idea makes sense, though, that there would be some common correlates among languages, even languages that aren't borrowed from one another.

I suppose it was just frustrating because I couldn't really see the point of trying to create a universal x-bar theory. For example, I like this tall boy better than that one. throws most basic theories into an uncorrectable dilemma, because "one" can refer to "tall boy" or simply "boy." It's impossible to determine which X(N) structure dominates the X(N-1) that "one" represents. To standardize such a rule one way or another is, by default, to simultaneously create its exception. It all seems so absurd, yet this is the minutia linguists pore over.

Though the one awesome thing about linguistics that I learned was the phonetic alphabet. And, by comparison, how much easier it is than our language. Or rather, how insanely stupid English spelling is. Seriously, switch to phonetic and we could wipe 8 years of spelling lessons from our school curriculum, leaving room for other stuff.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Digi

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, and I even looked it up. 😮

If it makes you feel any better, I don't actually understand it anymore either. Reading my own writing (or others'😉 about X-bar Theory years later is a mystifying experience. I know I wrote it, can even piece together certain parts of it, but much of the information is foreign to me due to non-use of it.

It's all for the better though. Most mind-numbing class I've ever taken. My curiosity, and the ability to take a masters-level course for an undergraduate degree only loosely related to linguistics, got me into a lot of trouble with it. A prospective English teacher sitting in with a bunch of linguistics Master's students...sucked. balls.

Originally posted by Digi
Nobody is/was talking in this thread for at least a few days, it's not exactly spam, and I'm a mod, so I'm sure we can let the off-topic-ness of it slide.

no point in having power if you cant throw it around every once in a while then, eh?

Originally posted by Digi
I'm actually unaware of the points you mentioned though concerning syntax and biology. We were delving into the theory itself more so than the societal or biological implications of it. The idea makes sense, though, that there would be some common correlates among languages, even languages that aren't borrowed from one another.

I suppose it was just frustrating because I couldn't really see the point of trying to create a universal x-bar theory. For example, I like this tall boy better than that one. throws most basic theories into an uncorrectable dilemma, because "one" can refer to "tall boy" or simply "boy." It's impossible to determine which X(N) structure dominates the X(N-1) that "one" represents. To standardize such a rule one way or another is, by default, to simultaneously create its exception. It all seems so absurd, yet this is the minutia linguists pore over.

LOL

no, i hear what you are saying. I think its the main difference between linguistics and psycholinguistics that you are emphasizing. Rather than simply looking at the structure of language and trying to infer things from that, psycholinguistics takes biology, linguistics, neuroscience, etc, and meshes it together.

Basically, Chomsky's huge input is like this:

Humans passively learn language. It takes no effort on the part of the child, and an adult need not even directly engage the child. Certain areas of the brain are, innately, designed to parse sounds into chunks, then, essentialy, determine the statistical probabilities of certain chunks following one another.

As these chunks eventually form words, children need to map the meaning of the words to real world objects. By engaging in joint attention with caregivers, the child learns how to refer to objects in the world around them etc.

It is complicated, and not my strongest area, but the essential idea that Chomsky's work produced is that this process is largely innate, and that the biological norms in how we engage in attending to objects and view ourselves in relation to them builds language. So, whether we have a language that is SVO [subject-verb-object] (boy grabs cup) or VSO or whatever, there is a specific language acquisition device (LAD) unique to all humans that has set rules for how people learn to map meanings to words or words onto objects. By biological parameters, i mean these, the way we are biologically predisposed to map words and meanings in a specific way that produces similarities in all languages.

I guess, when looking back now, we probably didn't spend a lot of time on X-Bar proper, but we had multiple series of lectures devoted to LAD vs language-as-just-another-cognitive-process (the distinction being, essentially, is language innate (LAD) or social (cognitive-process)).

Though X-bar didn't really explain everythingh, it set into motion what is now the bread-and-butter of psycholinguistics, and has been verified through neuroscience: We have specific language areas of the brain which, from birth, work to extract language from audio stimuli, and do so without any effort on the part of child or caregiver. So long as there is language around a child, they will develop language. While this might not seem like a huge revelation, the concept of "localization of function" and other important neuroscience findings make it seem much less impactful now than it was when Chomsky brought it out.

Originally posted by Digi
Though the one awesome thing about linguistics that I learned was the phonetic alphabet. And, by comparison, how much easier it is than our language. Or rather, how insanely stupid English spelling is. Seriously, switch to phonetic and we could wipe 8 years of spelling lessons from our school curriculum, leaving room for other stuff.

I get what you are saying, but I think that might deny English what it does best, which is adapt and change and incorporate words from other languages, etc.

For as difficult as it is to learn, I'm so enthralled with english. I'm citing Ricky Gervais on this, so take it with a grain of salt, but allegedly English has twice as many words as the next largest language, essentially making it unparallel when it comes to expressing oneself.

We could regulate it, sure, and everything that had previously been incorporated could be standardized, but it would never grow the way it has. The "Englishes" that are now spoken in the Carribean would be bastardizations, rather than new species of the language.

Originally posted by Digi
If it makes you feel any better, I don't actually understand it anymore either. Reading my own writing (or others'😉 about X-bar Theory years later is a mystifying experience. I know I wrote it, can even piece together certain parts of it, but much of the information is foreign to me due to non-use of it.

It's all for the better though. Most mind-numbing class I've ever taken. My curiosity, and the ability to take a masters-level course for an undergraduate degree only loosely related to linguistics, got me into a lot of trouble with it. A prospective English teacher sitting in with a bunch of linguistics Master's students...sucked. balls.

😆 Ya, I thought quantum mechanics was bad, but X-bar Theory reads like Greek to me. How does X-bar differ from the idea of memes?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
😆 Ya, I thought quantum mechanics was bad, but X-bar Theory reads like Greek to me. How does X-bar differ from the idea of memes?

do you mean in terms of how they explain certain aspects of language, or just in general?

Originally posted by inimalist
do you mean in terms of how they explain certain aspects of language, or just in general?

Ah, in how they explain certain aspects of language, I think. When I was reading the explanation of X-bar in wiki, it seems to sound like a meme to me. However, I am the student, and you guys are the teacher.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Do biologists who say that morality is ingrained/hardwired into us, honestly believe that? Or do their professors/peers/literature compel them to say that? Saying that its not learned, but innate seems to belittle the whole idea of being morally good; you're not being good, its actually nature doing it for you.

I would assume they do

That last sentence makes little sense from a psychological point of view. Everything you do is nature, the fact you think there is a "you" inside your head doing things is nature.

Originally posted by Quiero Mota
Is nothing learned or cultural to those people? They seem to be able to churn out arguments, or find a way to make everything inherited. "Why do I like rap, but not country?" "Well, according to Darwin...."

Because of the complexity of the issue, and how new it is to science, people tend not to talk about neuroplasticity at all. Even the most genetically determined behaviours and cognitions require the proper social influence to express. It is a give and take between environment and genes in such a way that it is impossible to separate the two. Rather than looking at a person as the result of two separate "nature" and "nurture" processes, it is probably better to look at them as the result of one process of development in which genes and nurture interact.

Biologists are most likely to attribute things to biology, the same way quantum physicists try to explain everything in the universe with quarks and entanglement. Human behaviour is best understood by psychology, so while biologists might be relevant, its not even close to authorative.

I'd also take anything on programs with a grain of salt, its edited for an impact on the audience, not for peer review accuracy.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Ah, in how they explain certain aspects of language, I think. When I was reading the explanation of X-bar in wiki, it seems to sound like a meme to me. However, I am the student, and you guys are the teacher.

x bar theory is the description of the inner workings of language and speech within each person that create the machinery in which memes are created, altered, and propogated by people through such linguistic channels....

...

so, like, X bar gives us the grammatical rules and underlying was to access meanings to linguistic symbols, whereas memes talk about how these meanings and symbols are used under such rules...

thats not any clearer...

The relationship isn't really as strong as you are thinking, as memes are not just language, but anything that can be imitated (which is an essay in itself). Linguistic memes would have to follow the rules of x-bar, because that is how language works to us (so far as x-bar is true), and there are probably some interesting interactions there (for instance, can something's linguistic qualities make it more or less likely to be imitated), but they are generally separate things.

memetics really doesn't explain a lot about the origins of language, because imitation is really only tertiarry in aquiring language. Joint attention plays a major role, so there is a connection there, but because language is acquired without effort (children aren't trying to imitate their parents speach) there is no passage of memes in the traditional sense until word meaning is already understood by the child.

When word meaning becomes a meme in a child would be an interesting philosophical question though...

Originally posted by inimalist
x bar theory is the description of the inner workings of language and speech within each person that create the machinery in which memes are created, altered, and propogated by people through such linguistic channels....

...

so, like, X bar gives us the grammatical rules and underlying was to access meanings to linguistic symbols, whereas memes talk about how these meanings and symbols are used under such rules...

thats not any clearer...

The relationship isn't really as strong as you are thinking, as memes are not just language, but anything that can be imitated (which is an essay in itself). Linguistic memes would have to follow the rules of x-bar, because that is how language works to us (so far as x-bar is true), and there are probably some interesting interactions there (for instance, can something's linguistic qualities make it more or less likely to be imitated), but they are generally separate things.

memetics really doesn't explain a lot about the origins of language, because imitation is really only tertiarry in aquiring language. Joint attention plays a major role, so there is a connection there, but because language is acquired without effort (children aren't trying to imitate their parents speach) there is no passage of memes in the traditional sense until word meaning is already understood by the child.

When word meaning becomes a meme in a child would be an interesting philosophical question though...

Interesting. So, X-bar theory tries to explain the fundamental structure that all languages are constructed upon. In a way this would shed light on the inner working and development/evolution of the brain. How successful is this theory?

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Interesting. So, X-bar theory tries to explain the fundamental structure that all languages are constructed upon. In a way this would shed light on the inner working and development/evolution of the brain. How successful is this theory?

x-bar works nearly universally, though not entirely

to someone strictly interested in the structure of language, it is probably a good tool, and does provide the groundwork for a lot of how current linguistic work is done.

However, you did hit on what, at least imho, is the most important implication, and that is the developmental/evolutionary stuff, I tried to touch a little on that to digi above, but yes, x bar insinuates that there are natural predispositions to how languages are made and to how people use language to refer to themselves and objects in the world

Originally posted by inimalist
x-bar works nearly universally, though not entirely

to someone strictly interested in the structure of language, it is probably a good tool, and does provide the groundwork for a lot of how current linguistic work is done.

However, you did hit on what, at least imho, is the most important implication, and that is the developmental/evolutionary stuff, I tried to touch a little on that to digi above, but yes, x bar insinuates that there are natural predispositions to how languages are made and to how people use language to refer to themselves and objects in the world

Ya, that makes sense to me. Can X-bar be applied to other animals (other then human)?

I've always had this gut feeling that animals do talk to each other. But because what is "important" to them is different then what is "important" to us, we are not able to bridge the gap.

Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Ya, that makes sense to me. Can X-bar be applied to other animals (other then human)?

I've always had this gut feeling that animals do talk to each other. But because what is "important" to them is different then what is "important" to us, we are not able to bridge the gap.

and this statement includes all other great apes, whales and dolphins:

no other animal on the planet has language similar to humans

if we want to stretch definitions and call animal communication language, we would instantly need to create a new category for human language. In terms of grammatical rules and the ability to generate an infinite amount of meaningful phrases (I beliebe these are the 2 big qualities) no other species even comes close.

Originally posted by inimalist
and this statement includes all other great apes, whales and dolphins:

[b]no other animal on the planet has language similar to humans

if we want to stretch definitions and call animal communication language, we would instantly need to create a new category for human language. In terms of grammatical rules and the ability to generate an infinite amount of meaningful phrases (I beliebe these are the 2 big qualities) no other species even comes close. [/B]

Is that true, or is it a reflection of our species bios?