Re: Throwing out the tree-structured grammar (SF Xenolinguistics FAQ)?

> I cannot see that it is possible to have anything
> recognisable as language that is not reducible
> (or morphable, or pick-your-verb-able) to some kind
> of tree. The universe of perception is things
> happening to objects, relationships between objects,
> and relationships between events. That's pretty
> irremovable from a tree-able structure, isn't it?
IMO, one can argue the exact nature of perception on a neurological
level, but anything above this is hypothetical in my world. There
are neurological paths which are resulting from need, evironment and
species' concensus - layer upon layer of subtle assumptions - so
deeply emphsized that I wonder if they might not as well be
hardwired.

And I remain unconvinced that anyone can think non-linearly - that
non-linear thinking isn't really linear on so discrete a level that
the claimant can't perceive it. Could a different type of brain
truely think non-linearly? Maybe, but I assert a human would
perceive it as linear.

So, yes, I agree - it's all linear.