Re: Optimum number of symbols

En réponse à "Mike S." <mcslason@...>:

>
> Non-verbal communication is mostly register, not semantics.  I say
> something like "oh, I had great time"  and you know from my tone
> whether I am serious or sarcastic.  No matter how I change my tone
> though, you will not hear it as "I had a grate time" because that
> interpretation makes no sense.  Nearly all the time, context alone
> establishes literal meaning;  tone expresses the speaker's attitude
> towards his words.  (Note the phrase "literal meaning": it's the
> meaning that is most obvious given the letters alone.)
>
Actually, I used to be of that opinion too, until my boyfriend, psychiatrist of
profession, proved me that I was wrong. I couldn't repeat anything of his
demonstration (it would imply that you would be in front of me to make it
possible), but as short, for his profession he had to learn to decode
consciously things that we usually don't realise but unconsciously take into
account, so much that we even deny their existence. But as a short, non-verbal
communication amounts for a lot of the semantics (at least 40%, a surprising
figure, but very true), and it can even lead to situations like the one you
dismissed (not that obviously, but still...). The fact that most of it happens
on a subconscious level explains why we so often deny its existence.

> Thus, although a great deal of information is lost to writing,
> it is typically not the sort of information that could be used
> to successfully disambiguate a homonym, say, "paws" and "pause".
>
I used to be of that opinion too. I was proved wrong (sorry that this medium
doesn't allow me to give you more explanation. I'm not good enough in this to
even attempt it :(( ).

> A special remark on prosody--that indeed is important.  The best we
> can do here pretty much though is use punctuation marks.  Spelling
> has no effect on prosody that punctuation also couldn't accomplish.
>
Yes it does, if only for word prosody, like accent.

>
> I would argue that context is more salient and more sufficient in
> written
> speech than in spoken.  More salient, because the reader has no other
> clues to go by, and more sufficient because writing is normally
> composed
> with more care than spontaneous speech.
>
True. But why do you think that it is composed with more care?

>
> I think I know what you mean, but examples would be helpful.
>
Sorry, no idea at the moment. I'm no good at giving examples. I have to stumble
accross a real life event to be able to make it into an example...

>
> Not advisable?  I guess someone forgot to tell the Greeks and Romans.
> They didn't even use punctuation marks or spacing, the fools.
>
Don't forget most of their writings were transmitted orally from teacher to
student, the teacher himself having learnt it from his teacher, etc... And most
of it was terribly conservative, so that the context was virtually around the
readers :)) . Spaces and punctuation marks basically appeared when silent
reading appeared too.

>
> I find this a little far fetched when applied to morphemic ambiguity.
> In order for me to accept this, you would have to explain in a little
> more detail how body language could disambiguate a pair like "aisle"
> and "isle" that context had already failed to disambiguate.
>
I can't (I'm no psychiatrist) and you cannot give strict examples like that for
something whcih has to do with context.


> You may have some sort of case buried in this post, but as it stands,
> I can't imagine what it is.  Perhaps some concrete illustrations
> would illuminate the matter.
>
You'll have to look for them yourself. I wish I could reproduce the situations
that convinced me that my friend was right, but he mainly used real situations
that had happened to us at the very same moment, and I cannot replicate that.
Maybe someone with a background in psychiatry could help here.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.