From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Written and Spoken Language(s)
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:48:11 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr14.171428.17911@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@elaine46.Stanford.EDU (Rich Alderson) writes:
>In article <204854@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, dtate@unix (David M Tate) writes:
>>
>>Now I'm *really* confused.  In what way do the Hindu-Arabic numerals comprise
>>a language, except perhaps in the automota-theoretical sense?  Linguistics
>>doesn't study that sort of "language", which is simply a set of "well-formed"
>>symbol strings.  
>
>Actually, linguistics *does* study that sort of language, as a precursor to
>more powerful generative tools such as phrase-structure grammars.  

Well, *linguists* study these things, in order to learn the difference 
between finite-state languages and context-free languages and context-
dependent languages and such, but the end result of this study is to discover
that finite-state languages can't even come close to representing natural
language syntax.  That's what put the transformations in Transformational
Grammar.  So, yes, linguists doing generative work learn about automata and
their language-classes on the road to doing formal model work for natural
language, but they don't actually use the finite-state stuff for modelling
more than tiny subsets of any natural language.

(Can't you just hear Bob Hope and Bing Crosby singing "We're off on the road
 to Government-Binding...", as they pore over the Myhill-Nerode Theorem? :-) )

>>Scott Horne has already claimed that the number shapes come from the shapes
>>of their initial letters in a written version of some language, but I couldn't
>>say one way or the other.  (I was taught that they are stylized version of
>>pictograms of n sticks for n=1 through 4, and of a hand for n=5; this may be
>>the semiotic equivalent of folk etymology...).
>
>That sounds more like Roman numerals.

Well, for them it's obvious, but I meant the H-A's.  Thus,

	| => 1

	_
	_ => Z => 2, where the diagonal appears as a stroke that allows you
			to keep your stylus on the writing surface, speeding
			up your writing.

	_
	_  => something like Greek xi => 3  (same development; see Japanese
	_		'ni' and 'san' characters for analogous glyphs)


		  /|
	_|_  =>  /_|_  (bad drawing; the four sticks in a cross pattern are
	 |         |    then connected by another "cursivizing" line that
			allows the character to be drawn without lifting the
			stylus.)

	For "5", hold your left hand palm-up with the fingers relaxed.  Now
	turn it so that the thumb lies horizontally, with the hand below it.
	If you interpret the curve of the "5" as the outline of the curled
	fingers, it works pretty well.

As I say, this could well be a folk-etymology (glyphology?  graphology?),
but it's interesting.



-- 
          David M. Tate            |"The man who hath no music in himself
     dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu       | Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sound
  A poem should be dumb, / As old  | Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils
 medallions to the thumb.-MacLeish | 	Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice", A.V
Newsgroups: sci.lang