A Tract On Linguistics
A Tract On Linguistics
> Image Above is Generated Using Stable Diffusion with [title] as the primary prompt
> Other images were generated in similar manner with section titles as primary prompt
What Is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the study of human language and its various aspects. including its nature, structure, development, cognition and socialisation. It is a multi-disciplinary field primarily situated between psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis include syntax, semantics, morphology, phonetics, phonology, and pragmatics.
Broadly, linguistics can be split into theoretical and applied branches. Applied linguistics specifically encompasses pragmatics, historical linguistics, morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology, typology, and cognitive semantics. Theoretical linguistics almost exclusively focuses on formal semantics. This is highly appropriate as, of the areas just listed, formal linguistics is the only a priori field (ie. the only field which has no reference in the world). All the other fields involve examination of the world and therefore cannot be entirely theoretical (in the same way that applied physics cannot be theoretical in the sense that theoretical physics must be).
Theoretical linguistics, particularly its derivative formal semantics, is inexorably connected to Philosophy of Language.
What Is Philosophy of Language?
Philosophy of Language is a field of philosophy, typically studied by analytical philosophers, which focuses on studying the nature of language, its users, and the relationship between language and the world. This includes research into the meanings of words, the intentions behind words, the construction of sentences, the acquisition of language, and the role language plays in cognition.
Many of the most famous analytical philosophers applied themselves in this field. Amongst these titans are: Gottlob Frege (Inventor of Former Logic, Forerunner of Analytical Philosophy, Key figure in Philosophy of Mathematics), Betrand Russell (A Founder of Analytical Philosophy, Prominent figure in Logicism), and Ludwig Wittgenstein (Genius, Central Figure in Philosophy of Language and Semantics, Progenitor of the ‘Linguistic Turn’)
What Is Language?
What is language? This question in itself is a key concern of the philosophy of language; or the pure or formal inquiry into the field of language itself. Note: an inquiry is ‘pure’ if its object is absent of experience. Similarly, an inquiry is ‘formal’ if its object is the inquiry itself; ie. if it investigates itself without reference to any external purpose. For the purpose of this writing, it will suffice to say that language is: a complex system of interaction between actors which either intends or incidentally achieves a communicability of understanding across minds. Let us expand this definition for sake of clarity:
A system is complex if it is non-reductive. That is, if the ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. In the case of language; the system [language] appears to take on a nature superseding that which is within its components [which will be outlined].
Communicability is the property attained by any phenomena that has the potential (though not necessarily the actuality) to be understood intersubjectively. Alternatively, communicability is the trait possessed by information that, after being processed by one agent’s faculties, may be readily comprehended by another agent, both independently and (more importantly) from the perspective of the former agent. Any phenomena with the property ‘communicability’ may be termed ‘communicable’. Qualia is an example of a formally incommunicable phenomena.
Understanding is the term given to the ready comprehension of an object of the mind by the mind. Therefore, because understanding is multiple (in that it changes its object) it must always be specified which object of the understanding is under consideration. In the case of language, singularity is not possible. This is because the possible objects of language are (nearly) as multiple as the possible object of thought which, in a practical sense, are infinite to the human mind. Therefore; there can be no one object of understanding put forward in the case of language. Rather, understanding should be seen as a goal for any object that is decided by the subject prior to its engagement with language.
With these considerations in mind. We may expand my prior definition as such:
Language is a non-reductive system mechanism of interaction existing between agents. This mechanism either intends or achieves intersubjective comprehension and the successful transmission of information regarding its present object.
What Are The Components Of Language?
Written or spoken language is typically (ie. not universally) regarded as the archetypal example of that concept. Of the linguistic modes, they are also likely the easiest to analyse. This is because they are characteristically composite. By this I mean, written language can be seen as a composition (ie. composite) of components, as can spoken language. Against this, other modes such as body language are not so readily seen through as composites. Therefore, when considering the components of language, in this section, I am considering the components of written and spoken language. I will give specific reference to written language because it is easiest to express in writing. I say all this just to notify the reader that I am aware that other kinds of language exist and the reader should not be led by this piece to believe writing and speech are the exclusive modes of linguistic expression.
Morphemes
Morphemes are tautologically the smallest unit of linguistic meaning. They are the components of meaning upon which all other components build. Analogously, they are the atoms of the linguistic realm. Morphemes can be, but need not be, complete words. For example; the word ‘cow’ is a morpheme as it cannot be reduced any further. An example of the opposite case might be ‘regicide’. Regicide (the killing of a king) is not a morpheme because it can be further reduced to the roots (in this case the true morphemes) ‘regus’ (relating to a king) and ‘cidium’ (meaning killer or the action of killing). Individual letters can be morphemes, indeed they must be where they alone form words such as ‘I’ or ‘a’, but are not in most cases. For example; the word ‘ahistorical’ is composed of three morphemes (‘a’, ‘historicus’, and ‘-al’) one of which is a single letter. However, in a word like ‘home’; none of the individual letters form morphemes. It is important to recognise and understand this distinction because the analysis of words and their context is very different to the analysis of morphemes and their attributable meanings. Thus, a letter ‘a’ may be both a letter and a morpheme and must be understood differently and analysed differently in both cases.
Words
A word is a separable unit of information contained within the superstructure of a sentence. A word may be composed of multiple morphemes, or may be a morpheme itself (in addition to being a word). Words may compose sentences of themselves but often do not. For example; the sentence “Ouch!” is composed of a single word. It is nonetheless a sentence, shown by its grammatical necessity. It seems that many polymorphetic words are reductive in nature. That is, they can be better understood by analysing their composing morphemes. However, it would be impossible to extend this claim to all words. Indeed, there is heated debate in linguistic and philosophical fields even just about the relationship between a word, its meaning, and the meanings of its composites. Debate which asks questions like: “Can a word have a meaning not composed by its morphemes?” “Would such a word constitute a morpheme in itself?” “Do some words have ineffable meanings?”. I will not begin to attempt to answer such questions. They are far above my ability and outside the scope of this writing. I shall leave my statement in its general, and thus not particularly informative form.
Sentences
A sentence is a super-structure composed of one or more words but separated from that concept by the addition of grammatical structures. A word alone does not require any concept of grammar. Many words together (ie. a multi-word sentence) forms the basis of all grammatical structure. As previously mentioned, a sentence may be composed of a single word (“Ouch!”) but most commonly is not. In all cases however, a sentence will contain grammatical regularities, the likes of which are investigated by practical semantics and grammatics. These grammatical regularities seem to have the intent of systematising the information contained in a sentence, such that it can be conveyed more efficaciously. Once more, the questions of reductive meaning can be raised here (ie: “Is the meaning of a sentence like ‘I love you.’ more than the composite meanings of the words and the additional meaning of the grammar?”). Once more, I could not hope to answer them, so I shall move on with the poor descriptions I have thus far given.
What Is Meaning?
Within philosophy of language, and linguistics, perhaps the most prominent fields are those relating to meaning. These fields include semantics and semiotics. Semantics is the study of meaning and reference, or the relationship between some symbol, its meaning, and its reference. Following this, semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, which are intended to communicate some information (meaning). In both cases; ‘meaning’ denotes the internal content of some communicative mechanism (ie. a sign, a term, etc.). Consider the following example: “I am cold.”. One one view, the meaning (ie. transmittable information / internal content) of this sentence is determined by my intention when communicating it (this is the internist view). On another view, the meaning of the same sentence is determined (at least partially) by some reference (ie. the concept ‘cold’) which lies outside my control (this is an externalist view). Analytically; this relationship can be expressed as such:
f(x) = ax1
f(y)= bx1
f(z)= f(x)+f(y)
Where: f(x) = the meaning dependent on externality
f(y) = the meaning dependent on internality
x = the external form of some sign
a = an externalist coefficient, a [0,1]
b = an internalist coefficient, b [0,1]
f(z) = the complete internal content (meaning) of some sign
From this understanding, it is clear that if either coefficient is 0, ie. if the meaning is dependant on factors either entirely external or entirely internal to the sign, then the complete meaning will simply be according to the strict semantic internalist or radical externalist view.
Where Might Meaning Come From? The Twin World Hypothetical
Background
The Twin Earth thought experiment is a philosophical hypothetical presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in two key papers: "Meaning and Reference" (1973) and "The Meaning of 'Meaning'" (1975). It serves as an example of Putnam's argument for semantic externalism, the idea that the meanings of words are not entirely determined by mental processes. Putnam used the Twin Earth thought experiment along with two other examples, the Aluminum-Molybdenum case and the Beech-Elm case, to support his argument for semantic externalism. Since Putnam's original proposals, many other philosophers have developed variations on the thought experiment.
The Hypothetical
Hilary Putnam's original formulation of the Twin Earth thought experiment is as follows:
Imagine a planet, ‘Twin Earth’, that is exactly like Earth in every way, except that it lacks water. In place of water, there is a liquid that is chemically different but looks and behaves identically to water. This liquid has the chemical composition XYZ instead of our H2O. Nonetheless, the inhabitants of Twin Earth call the substance ‘water’ using their own version of the English language. This thought experiment is set in the past, when people on Earth and Twin Earth would have no way of knowing that the liquids they call ‘water’ are actually different substances.
The question then arises: when someone on Earth and their counterpart on Twin Earth both say "water," do they mean the same thing? Putnam argues that they do not, because the term "water" refers to H2O on Earth and XYZ on Twin Earth. Ie. The reference of the two words is different. Putnam takes this to mean that the meaning of a word is not determined solely by a person's internal psychological state, but also by the external factors that led them to learn the word in the first place. He summarises this view with the phrase, "meanings just ain't in the head.”
Scholarly Debate
Ever since its presentation, the hypothetical has been the focus of much debate. Particularly because the discussion between semantic externalism and internalism was rich before it was proposed. Indeed, the hypothetical has just become the newest front in a long standing academic war between the two camps.
Putnam's original point was that the reference of the term ‘water’ would differ for people on Earth and on Twin Earth, even though their psychological states were the same. However, some philosophers have taken issue with this. Such philosophers argue that the mental states (between earth and twin earth) must be different. They conclude this because, as they see it, a mind with the concept of H2O cannot be the same as a mind with the concept XYZ.
Other philosophers have argued that the term ‘water’ refers to anything that is sufficiently water-like, which would include both H2O and XYZ. This view challenges the underlying assumption of the hypothetical that the concept ‘water’ is a rigid designator which can only refer to a singular thing [H2O]. One such proponent, John Searle (1983), argues that even once we know that our water is H2O, we can either redefine what water is, or we can continue to allow the term "water" to refer to anything with the basic properties of water. Searle suggests that in the Twin Earth scenario, the latter option is more plausible, since if Twin Earth lacks water, all its water-based products will be different.
Finally, some externalist philosophers have even raised objections to thought experiment on the grounds of its implications for externalism. One such implication is the view that the experiment would be incompatible with privileged self-knowledge, a common tenet of both internalist and externalist views. Others have argued that thought experiments like Twin Earth are unreliable because the states of affairs they require us to consider are actually incomprehensible to use (ie. a substance that is identical to water but has different composition to water), and this leads us to faulty intuitions and conclusions. Still others have criticised Putnam's use of the experiment, arguing that it relies on ignoring certain aspects of the scenario in order to support Putnam's arguments.
The Externalist View
In philosophy of language, semantic externalism is the belief that the meaning of a term is influenced by factors outside of the speaker's mind. This is in contrast to semantic internalism, which holds that the meaning of a term is determined solely by the speaker's internal mental states. Therefore, according to an externalist perspective, it is possible for two speakers to have the same brain state when they utter a term and still mean different things by that term. This is the position largely developed by Putnam and is embodied in his statement “meaning just ain't in the head”.
This position is part of a broader theory known as the Direct Reference Theory of Language. This theory posits that the veridical meaning of a word lies in what it points out in the world (ie. in an external state). This claim is of course incompatible (at least in its extreme) with internalist views. Direct reference theories predate semantic externalist views quiet a way, back into the end of the British empiricists. For example; John Stuart Mill proposed what can be seen as such a system in his A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (2009). In that text, Mill constructs and differentiates between linguistic connotations and linguistic denotations. Connotations are relations between a name (given to a referent) and some collection of attributes. If a name is connotative, it denotes what it denotes in virtue of object or objects having the attributes the name connotes. The same object can, on the other hand, be denoted with several names with different connotations. A name can have connotation but no denotation. Connotation of a name, if it has one, can thus be taken to be its meaning (Macleod 2020). Thus; on this view, meaning, insofar as it is connotative - that is, denoting a relationship between the object and other objects or properties, but not mental states - must be external to the meaner.
Applying this view to the hypothetical, as Putnam intended it, the following interpretations begin to arise:
‘Water’ means different things on the two earths
This is because the referents are different between the earths. Ie. in one the referent is H2O and in the other the referent is XYZ.
Water cannot mean the same things on the two earths
The mental states are identical across the earths but this is not sufficient to produce meaning. No more than ‘misidentifying’ a cloud as a plane actually makes the cloud a plane.
The terms / signs actually applied to each of these words (‘water’) is irrelevant as signs are highly dynamic, can be but one of a number applying to the same (ie. the same proposition in different languages), and are not the basis of meaning but vice versa.
The Internalist View
Strict internalist views are far less common than strict externalist positions. This is likely because they may fall to the influential private-language arguments made famous by Wittgenstein (1986 ¶243 - ¶256). Nonetheless, against the strict semantic externalists; there are at least two views which consider a speaker’s mental state in determining meaning. The first is known as the mediated reference view. This position, which is not in fact a particular proposition, can be used to describe any theory which proposes that (1) meaning is referential to external objects, and (2) at once also referential to some mediatory internal state. Although this is not a strict externalist view, it is also not a strict internalist view. Thus, perhaps a stronger counter to the former view is the communal meaning theories of the later Wittgenstein (1986).
In his posthumous text, Philosophical Investigations (1986), Wittgenstein discussed the complexities of language and meaning. He believed that philosophers had largely made language appear more complicated than it actually is through misuse and meaningless questions. As such, Wittgenstein attempts to resolve the linguistic dilemmas of his time by showing that the meaning of a word is based on how it is used within a particular language-game. A language-game is a simple example of language use in the context of an action. He then suggests that the meaning of a word or sentence is determined by the "rules" of the language-game being played. For example, the word “Brick.” can have different meanings depending on the context in which it is used, such as an order (‘give me a brick’), an answer to a question (‘what is that house made of?’), or some other form of communication. This concept was intended, by Wittgenstein, to “bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life,” (1986 ¶23) and only through this can it have meaning.
This position was summarised further by Wittgenstein himself: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (1986 ¶43). It is from this quote that the common summary: ‘meaning is use’ is derived. This summation conveys the essential components of Wittgenstein’s view. That is; meaning cannot be intuited from an object alone, language cannot exist solely in one person, meaning is negotiated between a community of speakers. These components are all, at the least, against the strict internalist view. They would likely lead to a broad rejection of Putnam’s interpretation of the twin-world hypothetical. For example; they might insist that the chemical composition of water is as irrelevant to its meaning now as it was for the millions of years before chemistry was invented. Or, alternatively, are we to say that the meaning of our current words is actually determined by events in the future? If this is so, how could we know the meaning of any words, for the potential for their meaning to be future-bound is always present. Indeed, it seems a radical and strange position to bind yourself to.
Applying these views more analytically to the hypothetical, the following interpretations can arise:
‘Water’ could mean the same thing between the two earth
Even if the referents are different; the referents may not be known to the speakers in the relevant manner. Ie, someone who doesn’t know the chemicals are different has no basis on which to distinguish them.
The communities are using the terms in identical manners across the worlds, thus their interpolated meanings are the same.
The terms / signs actually applied to each of these words (‘water’) is irrelevant as signs are highly dynamic, can be but one of a number applying to the same (ie. the same proposition in different languages), and are not the basis of meaning but vice versa.
References
Macleod, C 2020, "John Stuart Mill", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, EN Zalta (ed.), viewed 13 December 2022, <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/mill/>.
Mill, JS 2009, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Project Gutenberg, viewed 13 December 2022, <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27942/pg27942-images.html>
Putnam, H 1973, ‘Meaning and Reference’, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70, no. 19, pp. 699–711.
Putnam, H 1975, The Meaning of "Meaning", University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, viewed 13 December 2022, <https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/185225>
Searle, JR 1983, Intentionality an Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wittgenstein, L 1986, Philosophical Investigations, GEM Anscombe (trans.), viewed 13 December 2022, <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54889e73e4b0a2c1f9891289/t/564b61a4e4b04eca59c4d232/1447780772744/Ludwig.Wittgenstein.-.Philosophical.Investigations.pdf>
Comments
Post a Comment