Re: unnatural languages

On Mar 13, 4:53 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article <YE68kkJnro9FF...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Richard Herring <richard.herr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Few American college students speak reasonably grammatical
English, and their writing is not much better.

By now, you are either deliberately lying, or you are utterly
uneducable.

Equivocation on "understand". Knowing that a particular verb ending
represents the pluperfect subjunctive is not the same thing as
extracting what it means. One doesn't understand speech in a foreign
language by consciously "looking up" each word in a mental primer.

One does not learn any concept by memorization. Do not
confuse learning the grammar with memorizing the rules.

How dare you attempt to respond to Richard's argument by repeating his
own words back at him.

Learning
the structure of French, or Hebrew, makes it possible
not to just translate, but to internalize what is learned.
That's not what "internalize" means, and learning *about* the structure
of a language doesn't help one to be fluent in it..

It certainly helps in reading.

No, it does not.

Even reading is mastered by children before "grammar" instruction
begins.


Learning to read is an activity quite distinct from language
acquisition.

Is it? How about language acquisition by the deaf?

Are you suggesting that communicating via sign language is somehow
like reading?

Please learn something about something before you opine about it.

Unclear. What is a language? There is a language
of mathematics, which is entirely written;
Not a language in the sense that linguists use the word. How many times
do I have to repeat this?

If everyone used the term "language" in the sense you
are using it, world communication will decline.

splork

Most of the world's people have a very precise grasp
of basic arithmetic, and know exactly who owes whom and how much, both
in financial and moral terms.

I think you will find "basic arithmetic" not to be well
understood.

As you very well know, Richard is not using the term "basic
arithmetic" in the professional mathematician's sense of some obscure
division of mathematics, but in the sense of adding, subtracting,
mul;tiplying, and dividing.

When it comes to government, how many have
a clear idea of what even they would consider a good form?

Was that supposed to be interpretable?


There are three levels of language involved in statistics.
The immediate level is probability, which has its own
concepts, very poorly understood by those learning by
memorization and computation.
Not a language in the sense that linguists use the word.

Again, maybe the linguists should broaden their scope.
Some scientists have, and this group is sci.lang.

Maybe the statisticians should start using words the way other people
do.

If they cannot use that language, they will be unable
to understand the concepts.
If they cannot use that *notation system*, they will be unable to
understand the concepts. That doesn't make it a language.

Understanding the "notation system" is NOT enough.
It is a language, rigid in grammar, but with a small
but extendible vocabulary.

Nothing whatsoever to do with human language.

Those who have only learned words as arbitrary sequences
of characters, not subject to any phonic rules, will not
be able to use the alphabet even for easy words. One of
my former colleagues saw the word "rug" italicized as a
word the seventh graders could not be expected to know.
They just learn by rote a collection of words as strings
of letters, with no restrictions.

Evidently you're not aware that linguists do not endorse the "whole
word" method.

In statistics, they learn formulas, and apply them with
know idea of the limitations of the formulas, or the
desirability of using that formula in that situation.

If someone has some data, and just adds, subtracts,
multiplies, and divides almost at will, do you think
the result will be meaningful?

If the data are the prices of the goods in their shopping cart, and
they need to determine whether they have enough cash in their wallet
to pay for the goods plus the sales tax, then absolutely yes.

A vanishingly small portion of the population has any need for
anything more advanced.

.

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