David Rose On Phonology And The Origin Of Words

David Rose wrote to SYSFLING on 29 Jul 2021, at 15:06:

Not a lot of ideational potential in phonology

Why our ancestors came up with words

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, if there were not "a lot of ideational potential" in phonology, the ideational content of language could not be expressed phonologically. If what Rose claims were true, it would be necessary to use another medium, such as writing or sign, to express ideational meaning.

What is true is that, in English, the systems of the tone group realise interpersonal and textual distinctions, while the systems of syllable and phoneme realise all metafunctional distinctions.

[2] To be clear, Rose's argument is:

• Reason: because there's "not a lot of ideational potential in phonology"
• Result: consequently "our ancestors came up with words"

Clearly, a stratum of lexicogrammar ("words") is no solution to an ideational deficiency on the stratum of phonology, because it still leaves no means of realising the ideational content of lexicogrammar in phonology. In short, this is a false conclusion invalidly reasoned from a false premiss.

On the other hand, it is amusing to imagine human ancestors intoning interpersonally and textually before they "came up with" words.

∞

The Dangers Of Phonology Not Realising Ideational Content

Tom Bartlett On Cognition And "Intentionality"

Tom Bartlett replied to John Bateman on SYSFLING on 6 Jul 2021, at 17:37:

Cheers for this John, and yes I was "confusing a description of grammar (for some subset of human languages) with a metalanguage for talking about semiotics?" - in the sense that I was mixing them up together - deliberately, but probably very ill-advisedly in such a brief post and when I am still in the middle of teaching and marking. I'll take the coward's way out for now and not elaborate on my underdeveloped words, but tbc....

One point only (I can't resist):

curiously cognitive I found: surely it depends, as with all semiotic systems of any interest, on the community of practice?

Yes and no, my intended point was that cognition from this perspective is simply embodied associations and responses and intentionality is just our post-hoc reflection on this (itself a material process......), so that the line between symbolising and saying is in the language of the construer (hence the blurring of the lines in the first part). 

A discussion (on my part at least) to be continued once teaching and marking have ended, preferably IRL and with a pint/cup of tea : )

Back to the virtual chalkface....

Blogger Comments:

[1] Bartlett's acceptance of Bateman's misunderstandings of his post as valid, and his reluctance to engage with Bateman on the issue, might reasonably be taken as evidence that Bartlett has only a very superficial understanding of the method he was deploying (using metalanguage to theorise).

[2] To be clear, the portion of Bartlett's original post that Bateman was commenting on is:

at what point does this move from an identifying relation to a verbal process? Does it depend on the intention of the speaker, the understanding of the hearer, or both?

[3] Here Bartlett has abandoned the SFL metalanguage perspective first taken in his original post, according to which cognition is the type of mental process through which propositional ideas are projected.

[4] Here again Bartlett has abandoned the SFL metalanguage perspective first taken in his original post. On this model, 'intention' is the type of mental process, which the grammar construes as either desiderative at clause rank (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 257), or cognitive ('resolving'/'considering') in projecting verbal group complexes (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 587).

On the other hand, Bartlett's claim that 'intentionality is just our post-hoc reflection on' 'embodied associations and responses' is a bare assertion, unsupported by argument or evidence. Moreover, the claim runs counter to the association of intention with planning and forethought. (It is reasonable to assume that, by 'intentionality', Bartlett actually means 'intention', since his original post was on intention, not intentionality.)

[5] From the perspective of SFL metalanguage, 'reflection' is a cognitive process, which the grammar construes as either mental or behavioural, but not material.

[6] To be clear, this is trivially true, since symbolising and saying are metalinguistic categories of language. However, the 'so that' here is unwarranted, because it does not logically follow as a conclusion from the two propositions that precede it, since it is unrelated to them; see [3] and [4] above.

[7] To be clear, the 'hence' here is unwarranted, since, as demonstrated above, none of the preceding clauses provide an argument regarding the blurring of "a description of grammar (for some subset of human languages) with a metalanguage for talking about semiotics", which, as explained in the previous post, is actually the distinction between using metalanguage to theorise and using language to theorise, respectively.

If it is not clear, here Bartlett was bluffing in an attempt to maintain his perceived status. The intellectual shortcoming of public dialogue MODE is that TENOR is more salient than FIELD.

John Bateman Failing To Understand Tom Bartlett On The Origins Of Language

John Bateman replied to Tom Bartlett on SYSFLING on 6 Jul 2021 at 16:53:

OK, Tom, I'll bite! ... was extremely confused by your post actually...

What is the vervet monkey, for example. doing with its call - making an instinctive noise or saying something? If its call says danger - to those who are conditioned to recognise this - at what point does this move from an identifying relation to a verbal process?

.... isn't this confusing a description of grammar (for some subset of human languages) with a metalanguage for talking about semiotics? 

Or is the use of 'identifying', 'verbal' stand-ins for indexical and symbolic? (or something else?). …

And at what point in our linguistic evolution and development (phyologenesis and ontogenesis) do semiotic noises as minor clauses (including holisms) develop the systemic regularities that index mood?

Similarly here: "semiotic noises as minor clauses"? 'minor clause' is a grammatical (systemic) feature (of a language)... why should there be a 'point' that indicates that a grammatical system is indexing speech functions... And 'semiotic noises' (you mean materiality shaped as a realisation of the forms of a semiotic system?) can only be 'minor clauses' when the said semiotic system include an alternation with 'minor clause' as one of the alternatives...

I suspect what is confusing me throughout is the conflation of specific grammatical terminology with intendedly general semiotic vocabulary without explicit marking in your text. So you mean whatever it is that the interpersonal semantics of 'minor clauses' is taken to be as what the 'semiotic noise' might be doing with respect to the semiotic system at issue? …

I guess this is all why they banned discussion of the origins of language way back :-) They were probably on to something ...

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the confusion here is entirely Bateman's, as he rightly acknowledges. On the one hand, a semiotic theory is not a metalanguage unless the semiotic system being theorised is language. A metalanguage is language turned back on itself, not language turned onto some other semiotic system. So Bateman's "metalanguage for talking about semiotics" is actually the use of language to theorise semiotics.

On the other hand, using metalanguage to theorise semiotics is precisely what Bartlett was trying to do.  Moreover, in this he was following the example set by this blogger, most obviously on Informing Thoughts. 

Importantly, just as language can be used to theorise any domain of experience, so too, obviously, can metalanguage. One advantage of using SFL metalanguage to theorise phenomena is that its architecture is explicitly defined, and inconsistencies in theorising can be identified and dismissed on the basis of reasoned evidence.

[2] Clearly not, since 'identifying' is the relation of symbolic abstraction and projection ('verbal') the relation between different orders of experience, whereas by 'indexical' and 'symbolic', Bateman means the distinction in Peircean semiotic theory, whose fundamental assumptions are incompatible with the social semiotic model of SFL Theory.

[3] See the previous post Tom Bartlett On The Origins Of Language.

[4] On the other hand, as Thomas Babington Macaulay said:

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

and as Niels Bohr said:

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.

Tom Bartlett On The Origins Of Language

Tom Bartlett wrote to: SYSFLING on 6 Jul 2021, at 15:02:

Following from Christian's explanation of the connections between symbolisation and projection and Bea and David's further comments, I'd say it's an example that relates beautifully to the origins of language. What is the vervet monkey, for example. doing with its call — making an instinctive noise or saying something? If its call says danger — to those who are conditioned to recognise this — at what point does this move from an identifying relation to a verbal process? Does it depend on the intention of the speaker, the understanding of the hearer, or both? In other words, at what point to we transition from instinctive reactive noise to shared symbolism and then from the call saying something (identifying) to the speaker saying something (verbal)? And at what point in our linguistic evolution and development (phyologenesis and ontogenesis) do semiotic noises as minor clauses (including holisms) develop the systemic regularities that index mood?

Maybe some of these questions are hinted at in the Mapudungun tale?

Blogger Comments:

The instance under discussion is from Mapudungun mythology: And the serpent chanted: 'kay, kay, kay'. In the story, this verbal projection creates (the existence/happening of) flooding rain.

[1] To be clear, this is the connection between 'x realises y' (symbolisation) and 'x says y' (projection).

[2] To be clear, this mythic symbolism is concerned not so much with the origins of language, but with the deep epistemological observation that what humans construes as 'reality' is actually meaning created of experience by the lexicogrammar of language. A similar point is made in Abrahamic mythology:

[3] To be clear, what is "instinctive" is the biological reaction to the threat, which, according to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, is the firing of neurones correlating specific perceptual categorisations with specific inherited values. This is distinct from the choice of call, according to situation, which is socio-semiotic, not biological.

[4] To be clear, confusingly, the wording its call says danger construes symbolisation with a verb that prototypically construes verbal projection.

[5] To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, there is no such move, because vervet protolanguage does not involve verbal processes. This is because verbal processes prototypically project locutions, which are lexicogrammatical, and protolanguage does not have a lexicogrammatical stratum. It is only in language that verbal processes can project protolanguage and non-semiotic sounds.

[6] To be clear, in terms of Halliday's taxonomy of system-&-process (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 507-10), this is the evolutionary trajectory from biological systems ("instinctive reactive noise") to socio-semiotic systems, and within the latter, from protolinguistic systems ("shared symbolism" = "call meaning something") to linguistic systems ("speaker saying something"). What's missing here are social systems, located between biological and socio-semiotic systems. For Halliday, these involve the exchange of value, but not symbolic value, such as those mediated through the exchange of pheromones in eusocial insect species. These might also be said to include phenomena that induce mental processes in conspecifics without symbolising meaning, such as a peacock's tail inducing, in a peahen, a desire to mate. (This is virtually Darwin's interpretation; for Wallace, a peacock's tail symbolises fitness, and so would be deemed socio-semiotic, not social).

[7] To be clear, on the SFL model, systems are established and altered, ontogenetically and phylogenetically, by instances. Instances of "semiotic noises as minor clauses" establish the systemic opposition with major clauses, and different functions of instances of minor clauses establish contrasts within the minor clause system. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 162):