Re: Open Letter to the Google Company (re Panu Petteri Höglund)

On Sep 22, 3:15 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"A permutation group is a group G whose elements are permutations of a given
set M, and whose group operation is the composition of permutations in G
(which are thought of as bijective functions from the set M to itself). The
application of a permutation group to the elements being permuted is called
its group action; it has applications in the study of symmetries,
combinatorics and many other branches of mathematics and physics."

But not, as far as I know, to linguistics.

At least, not up till now.

The principle of permutation is also present in
biology, as I explained many times. The brain
was originally just a neural nod, then it separated
into a left and a right hemisphere that first were
occupied with the same tasks but then, by and by,
took over separate tasks. This process happened
time and again, as brain areas were doubled,
first went on carrying out the same task, and then,
by and by, specializing in complementary tasks.
I claim a similar mechanism in early language.
For the sake of argument accept that RYT means
spear thrower (ancient Greek rythaer 'archer').
Now a successful hunter overcomes his prey
and may then call himself an overcomer, inverse
TYR (ancient Greek tyrant, originally with a positive
meaning, as a tyrant once cared for his people
and protected them). And when he successfully
hunted a big and dangerous animal it was a triumph
TRY (triumph being an Etruscan word). No need to
invent a completely new word every time you wish
to say something new, it's more economic to use
an existing word and turn it around, to use first
the inverse form and then another permutation,
following the biological model explained above.
This, however, only works with short words of
two or three phonemes; it works no longer with
our long and very long words. That is why this
mechanism is restricted to early language.
Superstition keeps a memory of earlier times.
Kabbalists perform permutations of words in
order to find the first word God spoke when
creating the World. This, for me, is indirect
evidence for the role permutations played in
early language. I explained all this time and again,
especially to Peter T. Daniels who was proud of
telling me and everybody else that he doesn't
read my messages.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: More Etymology!
    ... information about Magdalenian other than some vocabulary items. ... in my reconstruction of a language I call Magdalenian. ... short words related meanings, so that a word ... of the permutation group (positive overtones ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: More Etymology!
    ... I have no idea what's "missing" from Magdalenian, ... in my reconstruction of a language I call Magdalenian. ... short words related meanings, so that a word ... of the permutation group (positive overtones ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: K random numbers
    ... purely algorithmic question in purely language groups with out setting ... the second that has the contents of the permutation element. ... Thus, if the first two exchanges are,the arrays ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: PIE kap-, kaput, ghebh-,and ghebel?
    ... There is not any "permutation" in the comparative linguistic. ... I'm not touching anymore your Magdalenian language: ... (AFIACT metathesis and syncope is the main driving force of your ...
    (sci.lang)