Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1992 14:52:35 EST
From:         mmt@BEN.DCIEM.DND.CA
Subject:      replies on connectionism, language

[Martin Taylor 921104 13:40]

I'm trying to catch up on the backlog, so here are a few comments on
different postings, mostly from Bill Powers and mostly on language,
over the last week or two.  I don't expect to be away again for any
significant period until Spring, so maybe I'll get around to some earlier
postings that I have been saving for comment when time came available.
(Statistics for you, Rick? Maybe soon.)
-------------
First, before getting into the language stuff:
>
>From Bill Powers (921102.1230)
> What we were doing in those early years is now called
> "connectionism." Connectionism is just analogue computing making a
> comeback.
>
I disagree strongly.  In the past I have accused you of promulgating a
symbolic version of HPCT as opposed to a connectionist view of HPCT.  I
still think this is what you do.  You give each ECS a specific function,
appreciably different from that of each other ECS, and describable in
symbolic terms.  A connectionist view of HPCT is what we are trying to
achieve in the long term in the Little Baby project (though admittedly
the present LB has far too few ECSs to qualify).  Connectionism depends
at root on the distribution of representation, not on whether some elements
have a continuous rather than a discrete range of variation.  Your version
of HPCT isolates the responsibility for the control of particular percepts
to particular ECSs.  We would not do that, but would share the responsibility
through overlapping quasi-modular groups of ECSs.  Your version is to
connectionist HPCT as classical AI is to connectionist classifiers.  And it
leads to related kinds of problem.

=============
>From Bill Powers (921027.0700)
>I want to make a modest push to make sure our linguists really truly
>get this point. They may actually get it, but I don't think we're
>hearing the result. Sentence construction is not construction of some
>object out there, or in some vague conceptual space; it's construction
>of an input, a perception. The mere fact that we know of a sentence
>shows that it's a perception. The same goes for grammar, for any
>regularity we PERCEIVE in language. The relationships between
>different levels of analysis of language are relationships among
>levels of perception, not levels of output production. We have to
>guess what the production processes are, because they're outputs and
>we don't perceive outputs. We perceive only their perceptual
>consequences: language is perception.

Yes, but in most cases of language production, I would have thought that
most of the perception was imagined.  There is very little overt correction
of ongoing language production, though there may well be correction based
on the talker's perception of the effect of the production on the hearer.
The actual output utterance seems usually to be produced accurately (at
the level of the phrases--I'm not talking about the ongoing control of
articulatory perceptions).

What we are into here is a bit of a problem with the relation of imagination
and planning.  The lower-level control processes in speech are usually good
enough that few if any real-world disturbances affect the production of
intended words; it could almost be a straight outflow process!  So an
utterance could, in principle, be preplanned by imagining the effect it
would be likely to have.  The controlled perceptions would be at higher
and lower levels, where the real-world disturbances are important.
-----------
>
>From Bill Powers (921028.0630)
>(Penni Sibun)
>>i would argue (and do, very strongly) that our perceptions of
>>sentences and grammars have next to nothing to do with how we use
>>language, either understanding it or producing it.
>
>I agree in the sense that we use words in any way needed to evoke
>meanings in ourselves that we hope are similarly evoked in others. But
>I disagree with your extreme position, because it's clear that people
>DO make well-formed sentences and perceive them as such; you did so in
>the sentence above. We have concerns not only with conveying meanings,
>but with observing grammatical rules and customs. Sometimes it is only
>the grammatical form that lets us figure out what someone else's
>communication should mean. Syntax and grammar are aids in narrowing
>down possible meanings; we control for them the most carefully when we
>are most concerned with getting an exact meaning across.

The Layered Protocol position on syntax is that it is a conventional
way in which the functions of different elements of a message at one
level can be determined at that level.  A message that is properly formed
syntactically is one in which sender and receiver of the message agree on
the ways in which these functions are delineated, whether it be at a
phonetic level, the level of phrases, or the level of arguments. In this
sense, syntax is the one place in language where "encodingism" might apply.

It is assumed by the talker, for example, that a raised pitch, lengthened
syllable nucleus, and increased amplitude will identify to the listener
an element that demands special attention (it might be new information,
or might contrast with something the talkere believes the listener to
believe).  These are conventionalized cues (I believe that in Danish pitch
is lowered to have the same effect).  At a much higher level, one might
begin an argument by saying "You know that A" rather than simply "A,"
which might indicate that the talker was asserting A rather than using it
as a prerequisite for the assertion to follow.

I hesitate to say that syntax has any meaning in itself (a position not
taken in the quoted chunk, but mentioned in some postings in this thread).
Syntax is any form of redundancy (in the Shannon sense) that is incorporated
in the structure of a one-way message.  It helps assure the correct
transformation of messages from one level to another.
-------------
>
>From Bill Powers (921029.2200)
>  I agree, language theory has to handle spoken language. It may be
> that written language is somewhat artificial -- but if you look at
> transcripts of spoken language, you have to wonder how much
> imagination the listeners have to use to get a meaning out of it,
> much less the intended meaning.

I don't think written language is in the least artificial.  The mistake, to
me, is in identifying written language as a way of making a permanent
record of what might be spoken.  One can use writing that way, more or less,
if you don't mind missing a lot of what is spoken, but written language is
really an independent system, and it may well have originated quite apart from
the idea of recording speech, in agricultural and calendric records.

Written language is different from spoken language in various ways.  The most
important difference is in the timing of the feedback that lets the talker
or writer discover the effect of the speech/writing on the recipient.  The
talker can modify the effect as perceived on a time-scale of seconds,
whereas the writer (even in e-mail) can do it only on a time scale of
hours to months.  This means that the written language must be structured
so that its internal patterning enables the message to resist many kinds
of difficulties.  Written language must have a strong syntax, or be so
clearly situated in context that its intent can be derived without the
syntax.  It must have many synchronizing tricks that enable the reader to
take parts in relative isolation and interpret them even if preceding
parts have been missed.  Spaces between words, paragraph boundaries,
conventions such as "a sentence must have a subject and a verb", cues
to the argumentative function of a sentence, all are synchronizing syntactic
tricks that have little or no analogue in conversational speech.
>-
>from Gary Cziko 921103.0240
>
>But how does the child learning language know which of the many available
>perceptions are being spoken about?  The mother points and says "The cat is
>on the mat."  The young child has to figure out which of her perceptions
>(which of the many that are potentially available) mom is referring to.  Is
>she talking about her outstretched finger being itchy?  Does she mean that
>the cat is under the piano?  That the mat is under the cat?  That the cat
>looks hungry?  That the cat is tired?  That I should play with the cat?
>That I should get something for the cat to eat?  That there is dust under
>the piano?

Mothers don't start off with complex sentences like that.  "Motherese" is
a label for the way they tend to talk to babies.  Mother might say
"Cat, cat" (more probably "Pussy, pussy") while letting baby stroke the cat.
Baby says "Ca'", mother says "yes, cat" and smiles....  Baby learns that
this happens only when pussy is in view.  And so forth.  Two-word phrases
that link what Avery calls a thing and a situation (if I remember rightly)
come next.  It takes a while for complexes like "the cat" and "the mat"
to be linked into a single situation.  By that time, the intersection of
many different experiences with cat->"cat" and mat->"mat" have probably
rubbed off many of the rough edges of the relation, but it is still not
the same rel;ation as adults take for granted.  Children do a lot of
what is called "overextension" and "underextension." The word "Clock" may
be used to apply to a wall clock and a plate and a round hat, but not
to a tall clock (a grandfather clock, in some dialects).

It is not only young children that must "figure out which of her perceptions
>(which of the many that are potentially available) mom is referring to."
We all have to do it when confronted with a new word for some concept, and
we may never be sure that we have the same mapping as anyone else does.
Does "democracy" involve a multiparty system of reconciling antagonistic
sets of views?  Could a two-party system ever be considered "democratic?"
Some people would say "yes" to one question and "no" to the other, some
would say "yes" to both, some would say "no" to both, but all would use
the word "democracy" quite happily in a discussion, possibly without ever
discovering that the parties had quite different answers to these basic
questions about the "meaning" of the word.
===============
On "meaning" generally, a topic which has come up quite a bit in the last
couple of weeks.

"Meaning" is as meaning does.  It is pointless to argue about the meaning
of "meaning", because it has many.  Words out of context can often be
identified as labels for concepts of one kind or another, but these
definitions can only be guides to assist in a conventionalized use of
the words.  It may not be too much exaggeration to say that one can invent
scenarios in which any word can take on any predetermined meaning (i.e.
have any predetermined effect) at all.

In a trivial way, two people can agree that if one says "toast," the other
will throw a football through the living room window.  Does "toast" then
label this bizarre piece of destruction?  In a way, it does.  Less trivially,
without previous agreement, one person might manoeuvre the other (I
hesitate to use the word "control") into doing just that when "toast" is
mentioned (hard, but possible).  Does "toast" then mean "throwing a
football through the window?"

In Layered Protocol theory, there is no concept of "meaning."  All there is
is the effect the message at one layer has on the effect of a message at
another layer, and eventually the effect that the transaction has on the
perception the talker has of the listener's beliefs and vice-versa.  All
there is is the control by each partner of their perception of the other's
beliefs.  "Meaning" is the change wrought by the transaction--the error-
correcting actions that bring the perception of the other's beliefs to
match each one's reference levels for those beliefs.

In this sense, then, "meaning" can no more be an absolute than action can
be behaviour.  Each (behaviour and meaning) is the control of perception,
but "meaning" is attached to the behaviour we call language.

----------
Rick and Tom (and others?)

The idea of PCT teaching fables is fabulous.  PCT is obviously hard to get
across in words, like Sufi.  But, like Sufi, it may be possible to approach
obliquely through fables that show how non-PCT approaches dissipate into
thin air when blown away by the truth of PCT. The Midas touch of Goldilocks
would be a good starter!  Where is the PCT Nasruddin?

Martin
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