Nouns, verbs and adjectives

I am going to quibble with Steven Den Beste. (Steven, I don’t want to nitpick, my substantial response is two posts down – I want to make what I think is an interesting point of my own.)

Steven says:

Thus there are essential characteristics of the universe itself which are reflected in language. That's why I suspect that every human language contains nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Actually, adjectives are not necessary. Even in English we can say things like “red of cheek”, where “red” looks like a noun. In Hebrew, there are several verbs which express things that English expresses through adjectives: samahti (I was happy), esmah (I will be happy). In the present tense you can’t tell whether the word is an adjective or a verb: ani sameah (I am happy – in English you can tell it’s not a verb only because it would have to end in –ing). One can imagine a language where all adjectives are expressed as either nouns or verbs. According to The World’s Major languages, Tamil is one such language, having only nouns and verbs. (It is also true of many computer languages, as I point out in Objects and Services - Nouns and Verbs)

Adverbs though, as Steven said, are certainly not necessary. In Hebrew, one of the most common ways to express them is “with” + <noun>: higi`u b’hadraga – they arrived gradually, literally: they arrived with gradualness.

Grammatical categories such as noun, verb and adjective are not “essential characteristics of the universe” – they are essential characteristics of a particular language – the way a particular language models the universe.

However, I believe (in contrast to some) that there are “essential characteristics of the universe”, and the distinction between nouns and verbs might be one of them. I cannot imagine a language without this distinction, and I have tried. (If any reader can imagine one: I’d be grateful if you would tell me about it.)

UPDATE: Amritas says almost the same thing. It’s good to get confirmation from a linguist!

UPDATE: I can imagine a language with just nouns, no adjectives, and one verb: do. Then it would be like REST.

UPDATE: In Hausa, constructs like “red of cheek” are the regular way of expressing adjectives: fari-n zanee (white cloth), compare to kaaka-n yaaroo (grandfather of boy).

UPDATE: I just realized that all Hebrew verbs in the present tense behave exactly like adjectives. And like all Hebrew adjectives, they can be used as nouns. So is a Hebrew present participle a verb, adjective or noun? For example:

`oved `oved `oved – a working worker (male) works
`ovedet `ovedet `ovedet – a working worker (female) works
`ovdim `ovdim `ovdim – working workers (male) work
`ovdot `ovdot `ovdot – working workers (female) work

Language is a tool

In my last post I stated without elaboration that language is a tool. In my opinion, this is a very deep and meaningful statement, because I think that language is a tool much like any other tool human beings use. Proficiency with language is acquired the same way that proficiency with all tools is acquired. For example, when I ride a bicycle, I don't think about it at all – I only think about where I want to go, and somehow I go there. The mechanics of riding a bicycle are very complex, but somehow we learn them without knowing what, exactly, they are. The same goes for language.

Let's take another example: musical instruments. I play (not very well) guitar, harmonica, and piano. I can also whistle and sing. I can produce the same melody by any of these methods, but the physical motions that each one involves are radically different. However, anyone who can carry a tune can learn to play an instrument, because we humans have a built-in ability to use tools. Singing means that you can use your voice to reproduce the tune in your head. When you play an instrument, you do the same thing, but with a different tool. All you have to do is learn a different set of musical transformations to go from the tune in your head to the instrument you play, instead of your voice.

One more example: mathematics. Mathematical symbols are a tool that we use to express mathematical thoughts. The key reason why most people feel that math is a foreign language to them is that, well, it is. Most people never manage to internalize mathematical symbols to the extent that they become an intuitive language. They may know what the different symbols mean, but when they see a mathematical expression they have to figure it out, the way you would figure out an expression in a foreign language. In order to be able to use math productively, you have to become fluent in the language, i.e. to use its symbols intuitively to express what you really want to say, without thinking about the symbols themselves.

And this brings me to the nature of thought. There are two kinds of thought – rational thought, and what I'll call, for lack of a better term, intuitive thought. Rational thought is the kind of thought that we're consciously aware of, but intuitive thought is much more powerful. This is the kind of thought that we use to produce well-formed speech, to ride a bicycle, and to play an instrument – without necessarily knowing how we do it. The goal of all learning should be to make knowledge intuitive, for once we do that, we have acquired a new tool that our rational thought processes can apply to higher levels of thought.

UPDATE: Oops. I thought I said language is a tool. I guess I thought it, but didn’t say it.

Chomsky's linguistic theories

Steven Den Beste links to Amritas with a long post on Chomsky's linguistic theories and language in general. He proposes the following test of Chomsky’s theories:

Several supporters of Chomsky's theory (perhaps even including Chomsky himself, if he were willing to participate) would be given texts in several languages and would independently analyze them to derive the deep structure behind them. Their analyses would then be compared. If their analyses closely agreed, it would strongly support the validity of their theory. If they didn't agree at all, it would mean they were living in an intellectual home made of smoke and mirrors.

I have no doubt that Chomsky's theories would pass this test. The reason for this is that, as I understand it, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar is not really a grammar at all, but a meta-grammar – a grammar for describing grammars. It is akin to BNF, as Steven describes it:

We programmers have precise meta-language conventions for description of grammars, and one of the most common is called Backus-Naur Form, or BNF. BNF itself is thus a grammar, in a sense, but it is a very limited one which is entirely descriptive. BNF contains exactly one verb: "Is defined as" (which in BNF is spelled ::=).

The question therefore, as I understand it, is not to ask “is it true”, but to ask, “can it really describe all grammars?” If the answer is yes (actually the answer needs only to be: yes under such-and-such conditions) then we can ask, “How is it useful?” This is not a question that needs to be answered unequivocally; after all “useful” is not a well-defined term itself. If linguists use it, then it can be said to be useful.

This is also the reason that Chomskianism seems so much like a religion. Outside of linguistics you often find the same phenomenon: Java programmers vs. C programmers vs. BASIC programmers, Mac users vs. Linux users vs. Windows users. Or even: motorcycle riders vs. car drivers. Human beings are by nature tool-using animals, and the tools we use to interact with the world become integral to our perception of it. And “our perception of the world” is as good a definition of religion as any.

The real question is: is it worth the money that has been poured into it? I don’t see endless work being done on new forms of BNF. Granted, human languages are much more complex, but I think that after a while we reach a point of diminishing returns. Perhaps the efforts of linguists might be better applied elsewhere.

UPDATE: The real problem is that Chomsky’s followers don’t want Universal Grammar to be merely useful; they want it to be the truth.

Hannibal / Haniba`al

I have been looking for information about the origin of the Semitic root-and-pattern system without much luck so far. I hope to share my findings with you in a future post. In the meantime, I did find this nice chart of the Semitic family tree. You can see how closely related Hebrew is to Phoenician – they are practically the same language, both being practically the same as Canaanite, their immediate ancestor. I vividly recall when the movie Hannibal reached Israel – I saw posters for it all over. Hannibal in Hebrew (which I assume is the same as the original Punic, a dialect of Phoenician) is Haniba`al – Spear of the Master – a very evocative name, given the accompanying picture. Ba`al (the Master) was one of the Canaanite (and I presume Punic) gods. The Canaanites, and the Carthaginians, practiced child sacrifice (among other horrors) as part of their religious worship.

While we’re on the subject, The World’s Major Languages has the Punic name for Carthage (the real Hannibal’s city): Qart Hadasht. In Hebrew this would be Qiryah Hadashah (final t > h, but is still seen in construct form such as Qiryat Gat). Qiryah is “city”, hadashah is “new” so Qart Hadasht means New City. A large number of Israeli cities have the word Qiryah in them. In addition to Qiryat Gat, we have Qiryat Ono, Qiryat Sefer, Qiryat Malakhi, and many more.

Hebrew Morphology

Over the years I have read descriptions of many languages, and seen many weird and wonderful things. But nothing I’ve seen comes close to Semitic morphology – it reminds me of nothing more than a multiplication table, with roots along one axis and patterns along the other. Each one has a meaning: combine the two and you get a word. It seems like an impossibly elegant system for creating words; I can’t imagine how it could have evolved. No wonder the speakers of Hebrew and Arabic (both Semitic languages) consider their languages divine. I will speak specifically about Hebrew, but the concepts apply to all Semitic languages (though the specific roots and patterns may be different).

A Hebrew root consists of three consonants. It is not a morpheme in the sense that by itself it has a meaning – that’s why when I give the meaning of a Hebrew root I say “basic meaning”. This is my generalized sense of the unifying concept of all words that have that root. It only takes on a meaning when combined with a pattern. For example, consider the root q-l-t; it appears in the following words:

qalat – to take in
niqlat – to become acclimatized
hiqlit – to record

haqlata – recording
maqlet – receiver
miqlat – refuge
qaletet – cassette
qelet – input
taqlit – record

Notice that they all have the letters q, l, and t, inserted into different patterns of other letters. Notice also that these words all have something to do with “taking in” or “being taken in”. Now consider the following:

ma`der – hoe
mafret – plectrum (pick)
magber – amplifier
maqlet – receiver
mahshev – computer
maqrer – refrigerator
masreq – comb
matleh – rack
mavreg – screwdriver
mazleg – fork
mazreq – syringe

Notice that they all have the following pattern maXXeX, where the Xs stand for root letters. Notice also that they are all tools – this pattern is a pattern for tools. Can you guess the roots of each word?

Patterns have meanings for nouns, verbs and adjectives. For example, the pattern XaXiX corresponds to English words that end in –able. The meanings of the seven verb paradigms are as follows:

pa`al – simple, either transitive or intransitive
nif`al – the passive of pa`al, sometimes active, but always intransitive
pi`el – always transitive
pu`al – the passive of pi`el
hif`il – causative, always transitive
huf`al – the passive of hif`il
hitpa`el – reflexive, sometimes repetitive, always intransitive

Each verb paradigm consists of a rather large collection of patterns, each with a specific function. For example, the following is the paradigm for lamad – to learn, from the pa`al paradigm:

This system is productive – new words are created all the time using it; in fact you may notice that many of my examples are modern words. When I started learning Hebrew, I had a hard time believing that people could use it on an ad hoc basis, the way an English speaker can add –ize or –tion to a word as needed, which would be understood by all parties. But in time, I internalized the system, and am now productive in it. It’s amazing what the human mind can do.

UPDATE: The word for “software” in Hebrew is “tokhna”. On that basis a new pattern has been created for "–ware". It has produced:

homra – hardware (root: h-m-r – matter)
qoshha – firmware (root: q-sh-h – firm)
lomda – educational software (root: l-m-d – learning)
gonva – pirated software (root: g-n-v – stealing)

If I were to invent the word olna (root: '-l-n – tree) I bet it would be understood the way I intended!

UPDATE: More here.

Zoroastrian community

I have just stumbled across an article about the Zoroastrian community – which the author compares to the Jewish community. There are many similarities: an ethno-religious community with a large diaspora, which has had a disproportionate influence on the world:

“In numbers, Parsis [Indian Zoroastrians] are beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare” – Mahatma Gandhi.

As a community, Zoroastrians face the same existential challenge as the Jews: assimilation and low birth rate – but even worse. According to this document, there are less than 200,000 Zoroastrians in the world. I don’t believe that the Jews will become extinct, partly because of the existence of Israel, and partly because a core group of Jews have developed institutions which will preserve them. I don’t know if this is true of Zoroastrians. I would hate to see them disappear.

You can find a lot of interesting Zoroastrian links on this page (intended for Zoroastrians, which makes it more interesting), including this page on the Gujarati script for Avestan prayers, and this page comparing Gujarati script to other Indian scripts.

The World's Major Languages

What I miss most, living in Israel, is easy access to English-language books. There are no large English-language bookstores, as far as I know. And while I’m a big fan of Amazon, I can’t replicate the experience of bookstore browsing on their site (though in other ways it’s better than a bricks-and-mortar bookstore). Moreover, when I do order from Amazon, the extra shipping and taxes raise the price considerably.

My in-laws have been visiting for the past week or so (which is why my posting output has declined so precipitously – though I did make time to respond to my denbestelanche) and I took the opportunity to order a number of books from Amazon to be sent domestically to my guests before their visit. On the advice of Amritas, I ordered The World's Major Languages, by Bernard Comrie. It consists of short descriptions of some 50 languages. I haven’t had much time to enjoy it yet, but I did read the entry on Hebrew.

My interest in linguistics is part of a larger interest in systems. I love systems in general, and languages are systems for expressing things that people want to say. My interest in language is largely a curiosity about the different ways such systems can be, and have been, constructed.

Each essay is short, so the author has to pick and choose which features of the language to present. By far, the most interesting aspect of Hebrew, in my opinion, is its root-and-pattern morphology, which was presented in the introduction to Semitic languages as a whole. However, even there I don’t think that the author did a very good job of getting it across, part of the problem being that he felt compelled (I suppose) to use data from many Semitic languages, which obscured the nature of the system. I hope to present my own comprehensive summary in a future post.

One of the things that I look for are elegant solutions to linguistic issues – the Semitic root-and-pattern morphology being one of them. The meaning of elegant, as I am using it (and as mathematicians and engineers use it) is hard to explain, but it is something like, “a simple solution to a complex problem”.

An example that I happened across is the Hungarian local case system. It has a neat arrangement of suffixes.

The translations in parenthesis don’t appear in the text – they are my guesses as to the meaning based on the examples given.

Watch this space for more.

The most important thing about Abu Ghraib

I have seen a lot written about Abu Ghraib, but haven't seen the most important thing about it said simply and clearly, so I will do it.

The most important thing about Abu Ghraib is not the relative seriousness of what happened there, but that the US considers its perpetrators criminals. Every society has its criminals, their presence doesn't indict the society as a whole if - and this is a big if - they are treated as criminals.