Re: _Verum Et Factum Convertuntur_ (or: Surprised By Syntax)

Peter T. Daniels wrote: 
Colin Fine wrote:

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

stygging@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


Colin Fine wrote: 

Perhaps the most crucial property of human language is (Hockett)
"duality of patterning" or (Martinet) "double articulation." Meaningless
units are organized into meaningful units (the -emic principle, not to
be confused with the anthropologists' terms "emic" and "etic" that seem
to get it backward).

This is a new one on me. Would you expand, please? 

I think it is simply another way of saying: "wow! we can change one
phoneme for another and get a completely new word!" (double
articulation) and "dude! we can move big chunks of phonemes around in
phrases and get new meanings!" (duality of patterning). Whether those
are the most crucial properties of human language is of course
debatable, but at some levels they are definitely important. (It
wouldn't be surprising to learn that they were completely irrelevant at
some other levels.)

Perhaps Peter has something relevant to add. 


Perhaps Styggnorant John could read something on the topic.

Duality of patterning happens to infuse all areas of cognitive behavior;
it was first noticed in language, toward the end of the 19th century, by
Baudouin de Courtenay.


John at least made an attempt to answer my request. All your reply tells
me on the subject is that he was wrong.



Did you look at my reply/ies to _your_ posting? I can't go up the thread
and back down again on another branch, short of downloading all 8,806
current sci.lang messages, but I explained it when you asked.


?

The totality of your replies on the subject were:

PTD:
>Perhaps the most crucial property of human language is (Hockett)
>"duality of patterning" or (Martinet) "double articulation." >Meaningless
>units are organized into meaningful units (the -emic principle, not to
>be confused with the anthropologists' terms "emic" and "etic" that seem
>to get it backward).

and in response to my:
>This is a new one on me. Would you expand, please?

PTD:
>Duality of patterning happens to infuse all areas of cognitive >behavior;
>it was first noticed in language, toward the end of the 19th century, >by
>Baudouin de Courtenay.

>Styggnorant John doesn't seem to realize that Hockett's and Martinet's
>phrases are two names for the same thing, one in English, one in >French,
>that were coined about the same time (late 1950s).

Oh, and perhaps also relevant is
> Ok, read Hockett's or Martinet's presentation and tell me what you
> disagree with. They simply present some familiar facts and a new way > > of
> looking at them.


This is 'explaining'?


Colin
.