Re: universal concept list

From: Brian M. Scott (b.scott_at_csuohio.edu)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:12:41 -0400

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 11:51:42 -0700, "Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo
Gloria'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in
<news:4133773E.6B0B9590@backpacker.com> in sci.lang:

> "Brian M. Scott" wrote:

>> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 17:22:34 -0700, "Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo
>> Gloria'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in
>> <news:4132734A.597E6594@backpacker.com> in sci.lang:

>>> "Brian M. Scott" wrote:

>>>> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:38:42 -0700, "Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo
>>>> Gloria'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in
>>>> <news:41325AF2.8283F960@backpacker.com> in sci.lang:

>>>>> "Brian M. Scott" wrote:

>>>>>> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:18:09 -0700, "Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo
>>>>>> Gloria'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote in
>>>>>> <news:41323A01.BF4ECF@backpacker.com> in sci.lang:

>>>>>>> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

>>>>>>>> Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' ) wrote:

>>>>>>>>> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:

>>>>>>>>> > Bill Bonde ( ``Soli Deo Gloria'' ) wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>> I'm interested in the connections between related
>>>>>>>>>>> languages and how much help one can get in learning
>>>>>>>>>>> basics of languages related to ones that one knows or
>>>>>>>>>>> is studying. It's part of my theory that learning the
>>>>>>>>>>> meaning of a word is about ten percent of the effort
>>>>>>>>>>> while learning the word about 90%.

>>>>>>>>>> What is "learning the word" as opposed to "learning the
>>>>>>>>>> meaning of a word"?

>>>>>>>>> There is the word itself, its sounds, spelling, etc.,
>>>>>>>>> and there is what it means. There is a certain amount
>>>>>>>>> of effort required to learn the word and to learn what
>>>>>>>>> it means. The effort needed to learn the word is mostly
>>>>>>>>> removed if you already know it in another language,
>>>>>>>>> even if the meaning is different. All you need do then
>>>>>>>>> is figure out the new meaning.

>> [...]

>>>>>>>> (a) If it doesn't have a meaning, then it isn't a word.
>>>>>>>> There's no point in "learning" series of sounds or
>>>>>>>> letters with no meaning attached to them.

>>>>>>> I didn't say you should do that. I said you can divide out
>>>>>>> the two actions and that if you already know the word
>>>>>>> shape, you don't have to learn it again, just its new
>>>>>>> meaning. Isn't this what people are trying to do when
>>>>>>> they learn words by finding puns and the like between the
>>>>>>> word they are learning and words they already know,
>>>>>>> perhaps in another language?

>>>>>> No. Such tricks have to do with associating the right
>>>>>> meaning with the sequence of sounds or symbols.

>>>>> No? People do use a sound shape they know from one
>>>>> language to learn it as a different word in another.

>>>> People don't learn just sound shapes; they learn words and
>>>> phrases. The mnemonic tricks, if they use any, are
>>>> primarily to get the meanings properly associated with the
>>>> sound shapes, not to remember the sound shapes themselves.

>>> I don't see that. It is very possible to learn a sound shape and
>>> meaning, and then forget the meaning while retaining the sound shape.

>> Irrelevant: you appear to be confusing what is retained
>> after some period of time with what was originally learnt.

> Most people try to attach some meaning to a sound shape
> they are learning. What would be the point otherwise?

Precisely. Which is why your insistence on separating the
two strikes me as being fairly absurd.

> I'm just saying that there are sound shapes that you
> remember that you don't remember the meaning for, or that
> you don't remember the meaning for in the target
> language.

Of course. But this is irrelevant to your original claim.

[...]

>>> You can't claim that if one language has the word 'cow'
>>> meaning the same thing as another language with 'cow'
>>> that that is the same level of difficulty as learning
>>> 'cow' and 'asdf'.

>> I didn't. Aren't you paying attention to your own words?
>> You asked whether knowing that something was a word would
>> help me to learn its meaning more quickly. The answer is
>> 'no'.

> I thought that I said that knowing the sound shape in a
> target language but not its meaning would make learning
> the word easier because the effort to learn the sound
> shape has already occurred, and that learning the sound
> shape is the hard part, at least for ordinary words.

You did. You then asked a question that boils down to my
paraphrase in the paragraph to which you just responded. To
put it a little differently, you asked whether your first
claim (that 'knowing the sound shape ... has already
occurred') was true for me, and I told you that it wasn't.
Your 'cow' question deals with another issue altogether,
since you are supposing a situation in which both shape
_and_meaning_ match.

> Obviously learning how to properly and fluently use some
> complex word, say one with many meanings in the known
> language, is its own difficulty.

Indeed. But since neither of us has suggested otherwise, or
(till now) even raised the issue, I don't see why you're
doing so now.

[...]

>>>>>> Knowledge of the English word
>>>>>> <elf> does not make the German word <elf> easier to learn
>>>>>> than the German word <zehn>.

>>>>> Of course it does. You really believe that knowing the
>>>>> English word "wagon" doesn't help with the German word
>>>>> "Wagen"?

>>>> It is of no use whatsoever in learning the German word
>>>> <wagen> 'to venture, to risk, to dare', which is the case
>>>> actually analogous to the one that I presented. It may be
>>>> of some assistance in learning the German word <Wagen> 'a
>>>> car; a wagon', but that is because the meanings as well as
>>>> the sounds are similar; this example, which I assume is the
>>>> one you intended, is therefore irrelevant to your claim that
>>>> the shape alone is helpful, independent of the meaning.

>>> Obviously I was referring specifically to the German noun,
>>> but it doesn't really matter. I am claiming that the verb
>>> is also easier to learn than one that has no similar
>>> English word sound shape or spelling.

>> It certainly does matter; the claim strikes me as being not
>> only absurd, but obviously so.

>> To return to your 'cow' example: knowing English <cow> may
>> help me to learn German <Kuh> 'cow', but these cognates are
>> of ***-all use in learning Finnish <kuu> 'moon'.

> And I feel like I now know the Finnish word for 'moon'.
> And with no effort. We disagree, but I guess we are on
> the same page more or less.

I really don't think so: your thought processes here remain
pretty opaque to me.

> Could we find five languages with something close to
> 'kuu', all with different end meanings,

Quite possibly; I really don't know.

> and then almost instantly learn those end meanings all
> attached to that one word shape?

No. First, it *isn't* the same 'shape', even when it's as
close as German <elf> '11' and English <elf> (unless, of
course, you're talking only about the written word), so
knowing the one *doesn't* give you the other. (I hold my
vocal apparatus quite differently when I speak German from
the way I hold it to speak English.) Secondly, 'shape' is
not independent of context. If I see <elf> in a German
context, or one in which I'm thinking about German, the
English word doesn't occur to me; what's more, this was as
true ~45 years ago, when I first learnt the German word, as
it is today.

Cognates are a real help, if they're recognizable,
especially once you've begun to pick up the rules relating
them; accidental resemblances are of no use to me, and I
doubt very much that they are useful to very many others
except perhaps for cramming for a vocabulary quiz.

[...]

Brian

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