Re: Phonemes

On Sep 16, 10:45 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Because I don't understand them and ask about them all the time ...
(;-0)

Let me revise my opinion and propose a new answer: phonemes
are something between letters and 'voxels'. Letters keep a memory
of language outside the human brain, as drawings keep a memory
of what we saw. Pictures on a screen consist of elements called
pixels, from Latin pixit 'he or she painted'. So we might coin an
analoguous term for the element of electronically generated
voices: a voxel, from Latin vox 'voixe'.

Now the big question is: how are words stored in the human brain?

I made a new experiment using a Magdalenian compound:

POL PLO --- fortified dwelling (pol) made in the wattle and daub
technique (plo); ancient Greek polis and plokos, Old Latin poplo
Latin populus Italian popolo French peuple English people, also
Latin populus (long o) for poplar tree, as poplar upshots and
twigs were used for poles and stakes (while more flexible
willow twigs were used as whities, for the horizontal interlacing)

When I say polplo polplo polplo ... giving voice, in the normal way,
the word is kept in place, also when I whisper it, but when I
pronounce it silently, it easily drifts and shifts toward poplo and
then populus. What happens when I whisper softly and close
my ears with a finger each, moreover stirring the fingers so that
I can't hear anything of my whispers? the word is still kept in place,
but the control exerted by the brain is weaker.

My experiments lead me to the following cycle of a spoken word:
formed in the neural voice system nvs - passing the neural audio
system nas - reaching the physiological voice system pvs (vocal
tract) - sound-waves and vibrations of the skull reaching the
physiological audio system pas - received, analyzed and compared
with the original outgoing signals by the neural audio system nas
and the neural voice system nvs:

nvs - nas - pvs - pas - nas - nvs

The peculiar step in this loop goes from the nvs to the nas -
a word formed in the voice system of the brain has to pass
the audio system in the brain before it can be outspoken.
However, there is evidence for the close interlink of voicing
and hearing. Frequencies that can't be heard out of a
physiological or psychological reason can't be produced!
- very important for singers (there is a special therapy
allowing singers to form a full voice via an audio training
program). Another example for the close connection of
voice and hearing are the 'voices' heard by a part of the
schizophrenic patients: pictures of their brain taken in the
tube (MRI) show that while theiy 'hear' voices not their audio
system but their voice system is activated. While we may
chide ourselves: what a silly mistake I made! what an
idiot I am!, those patients hear a voice saying: idiot!
wortheless being!

How are words stored in the brain? Main components must
be stored in the nvs and nas, and if this holds, the two systems
might well store complementary components. I doubt ever more
that words are stored in the brain as strings of sounds, and I
guess we will learn much more in ten or twenty years, when
genuine neural network computers may be available.

Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

.

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