From: Mars6300@yahoo.com (L D) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien,alt.politics.nationalism.white Subject: Logical Structure for a Language and Sanskrit Date: 24 Nov 2003 20:41:24 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 60 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.160.172.176 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1069735285 15608 127.0.0.1 (25 Nov 2003 04:41:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 04:41:25 +0000 (UTC) Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:128196 mair_fheal@yahoo.com (coyotes morgan mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges) wrote in message > it doesnt make sense to talk about a langugage being logical or not > you can express logic or nonlogic in a language > but thats an attribute of the speakers not the language Okay, I found the source of my post about Sanskrit being a "logical" language (the Internet is an amazing resource!). I really should have been more precise and said "logical structure" rather than just "logical". The article was published in the Artificial Intelligence Magazine of Spring 1985 by Rick Briggs, a researcher at NASA. Abstract: http://www.aaai.org/Library/Magazine/Vol06/06-01/Abstracts/aimag06-01-003.html Article: http://www.aaai.org//Library/Magazine/Vol06/06-01/Papers/AIMag06-01-003.pdf Excerpt: "In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural language to make them accessible to computer processing, These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor. But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millenia old." > > all languages are presumed of the same complexity > though different languages put the complexity in different places I was not discussing complexity but rather logical structure, the two would probably be opposed to each other. For example Sanskrit spelling is simple and logical, the letters are phonemes, and words translate directly to sounds. English spelling is more complex and the sound depends upon where a letter occurs, as Shaw famously said in English fish can be spelt "gyoti". Regards, LD ###### From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien,alt.politics.nationalism.white Subject: Re: Logical Structure for a Language and Sanskrit Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 05:03:50 -0500 Lines: 20 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: h00c0a88ba22d.ne.client2.attbi.com (24.62.143.251) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1069754636 63541059 24.62.143.251 (16 [76471]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeeder.edisontel.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!h00c0a88ba22d.ne.client2.attbi.COM!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:128217 L D wrote: > > I was not discussing complexity but rather logical structure, the two > would probably be opposed to each other. For example Sanskrit spelling > is simple and logical, the letters are phonemes, and words translate > directly to sounds. English spelling is more complex and the sound > depends upon where a letter occurs, as Shaw famously said in English > fish can be spelt "gyoti". What makes English or any other real human language work is the transformation grammar deep structure. It is this recursive aspect of language that reflects the underlying "mentalese" that all humans have. Virtually every human on the planet, save the severely retarded reinvents language for himself before he achieves the age of three. Bob Kolker ###### From: john_altum@hotmail.com (John) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien,alt.politics.nationalism.white Subject: Re: Logical Structure for a Language and Sanskrit Date: 25 Nov 2003 02:44:12 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 18 Message-ID: <51c18e24.0311250244.3c24763e@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.233.204.12 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1069757053 6423 127.0.0.1 (25 Nov 2003 10:44:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:44:13 +0000 (UTC) Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:128219 Mars6300@yahoo.com (L D) wrote in message news:... > mair_fheal@yahoo.com (coyotes morgan mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges) wrote in message > > I was not discussing complexity but rather logical structure, the two > would probably be opposed to each other. For example Sanskrit spelling > is simple and logical, the letters are phonemes, and words translate > directly to sounds. English spelling is more complex and the sound > depends upon where a letter occurs, as Shaw famously said in English > fish can be spelt "gyoti". > > Regards, > > LD It's "ghoti" and it isn't true. None of those letters ever make those sounds in those positions. --John ###### User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Subject: Re: Logical Structure for a Language and Sanskrit From: "Rex F. May" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien,alt.politics.nationalism.white Message-ID: References: <51c18e24.0311250244.3c24763e@posting.google.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Lines: 28 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.9.91.6 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: attbi_s53 1069757610 24.9.91.6 (Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:53:30 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:53:30 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 10:53:30 GMT Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!canoe.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!attbi_s53.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:128220 in article 51c18e24.0311250244.3c24763e@posting.google.com, John at john_altum@hotmail.com wrote on 11/25/03 3:44 AM: > Mars6300@yahoo.com (L D) wrote in message > news:... >> mair_fheal@yahoo.com (coyotes morgan mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges) >> wrote in message >> >> I was not discussing complexity but rather logical structure, the two >> would probably be opposed to each other. For example Sanskrit spelling >> is simple and logical, the letters are phonemes, and words translate >> directly to sounds. English spelling is more complex and the sound >> depends upon where a letter occurs, as Shaw famously said in English >> fish can be spelt "gyoti". >> >> Regards, >> >> LD > > It's "ghoti" and it isn't true. None of those letters ever make those > sounds in those positions. Yes, 'ghoti'. And I wouldn't say it isn't true. I'd say it's a comic exaggeration of truth. Anyhow, many, many languages have simple, phonemic spelling. What else about Sanskrit is 'logical' or has 'logical structure'?