Grammar Introduces Logic

ucarr

log·ic| ˈläjik noun 1 reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity: experience is a better guide to this than deductive logic | the logic of the argument is faulty | he explains his move with simple logic.

late Middle English: via Old French logique and late Latin logica from Greek logikē (tekhnē) ‘(art) of reason’,

from logos ‘word, reason’.

__The Apple Dictionary

We see from the above that the name for the rules of inference, logic is almost the same word for human utterance, logos = ‘word, reason’. So human utterance and thought, which are inferential, are practically one. The verbal narrative is thus established as being rooted within logic.

Grammar introduces all speakers to logic. This is my central claim.

Let me proceed to make a logical argument about some details of English grammar.

Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions) are a class of words used to express spatial, temporal, {categorical and cognitive}* relations (in, under, towards, before) or mark various semantic roles (of, for).
*My additions

A preposition or postposition typically combines with a noun phrase, this being called its complement, or sometimes object. A preposition comes before its complement; a postposition comes after its complement. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as in, under and of precede their objects, such as in England, under the table, of Jane – although there are a few exceptions including "ago" and "notwithstanding", as in "three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding.”

__The Apple Dictionary

Over the years I’ve grappled with clarifying a simple and useful definition of preposition. Recently, I have perceived the wealth of prepositions that express a spatial or temporal relation between two parts of a sentence. Now I see, for the first time, a definition that says this (see above).

I want to add to this an observation that gives a quick and simple overview of prepositions that, so far, has given me an easy handle on this word class.

I think the preposition can be labeled as being a particular type of conjunction. It is the conjunction of (among other categories) space and time. As such, it expresses itself as a part of speech of foundational importance.

I now know that the study of any language grammar is, if you will, the layperson’s approach to making a study of logic. If you can say it, you can think it. This leads me to a claim that language is the medium of reason and, and this, in turn, leads me to the speculation that cognition also has for its medium, language. In this context, I note that language is expanded in scope to include all of the sensory forms of signification (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell).

Language and logic are synonyms. This boils down to saying you can’t practice cognition outside of language.

Grammar is logic, and logic is concerned with the parsing of continuity, so language, which is narrative continuity = logic.

The foundation for the central importance of the preposition is its utility as a signifier of spatial and temporal relationships between common things.

As pertains to the scope and depth of this importance, it should suffice to claim that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction. This is my premise.

Agent Smith

preposition — ucarr

My Achilles' heel! :cool:

RussellA

Language and logic are synonyms. This boils down to saying you can’t practice cognition outside of language. — ucarr

Causal understanding of water displacement by a crow

It seems that the crow is using cognition. If the crow has no language, then it is using cognition outside of language.

Joshs

↪ucarr

Language and logic are synonyms. This boils down to saying you can’t practice cognition outside of language. — ucarr

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. The latter is a specific use of language. Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception , which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. Our embodied perceptual-motor interaction with the world plays a large role in the origin of the structure of linguistic grammar. Animal cognition already implies a spatial-temporal ‘grammar’.

180 Proof

↪Joshs

:100: :up:

ucarr

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. — Joshs

As I see the above, it's not a refutation, but rather, a call for greater precision. Suppose I revise my claim to say, "grammar, the inferential platform and medium of language, is synonymous with logic"?

Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception, which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. — Joshs

Let's look at a piece of what you've written above.

...perceptual_already conceptual and cognitive prior to_language. — Joshs

Let's look at definitions of three of your important words.

con·cept | ˈkänˌsept |
noun
an abstract idea; a general notion: structuralism is a difficult concept | the concept of justice.

• Philosophy an idea or mental picture of a group or class of objects formed by combining all their aspects.

cog·ni·tion | ˌkäɡˈniSH(ə)n |
noun
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
• a result of this; a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.

per·cep·tion | pərˈsepSH(ə)n |
noun
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses: the normal limits to human perception.

__The Apple Dictionary

Do you deny that perception and abstraction are opposites?

Do you deny that perception does not imply knowledge?

Do you deny that the pre-language period of a toddler invokes the hard problem of communicating what it's like to be an experiencing individual with an innate POV?*

*Toddlers intentionally modulate their cries, grunts, moans, chuckles etc. in service to parents trying to decipher the wants and needs generated by their child's innate POV. This, I claim, exemplifies the child's linguistification of the crude "words" listed above.

How does the child, untaught, know how to modulate his crude "words" into intelligible signifiers? I claim such knowledge derives from the child's hard-wired, deep-speech aptitude, articulated by Chomsky.

If you claim that deep speech aptitude in pre-language toddlers shows that perception is conceptual and cognitive prior to language, then I claim that it simultaneously shows that its power of linguistification establishes perception, cognition and language as not discreet and thus temporal priority goes out the window.

Hanover

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. The latter is a specific use of language. — Joshs

I disagree that "formal logic" and "Fortran" are similarly related to language in that both represent specific uses of the language.

I see formal logic as the semantical component of language, which does not represent a structure , but a meaning, whereas Fortran is a specific syntactical language form used to convey a semantical meaning. Under any language (Fortran, French, English), you will need to adhere to a logical based semantics for coherence, but the form can vary among types of languages. That is, logic is not a language, but a component of language, whereas Fortran is a type of language.

Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception , which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. Our embodied perceptual-motor interaction with the world plays a large role in the origin of the structure of linguistic grammar. Animal cognition already implies a spatial-temporal ‘grammar’. — Joshs

This references a specific type of non-linguistic thought, specifically "how to" thought. That is, a chicken knows how to jump on the perch and likely engages in some form of non-linguistic reasoning when plotting her course from the ground, into the coop, up the ramp, and onto the perch. That is akin to much higher human non-linguistic "how to" knowledge, as when we can disassemble, repair, and reassemble an automobile transmission without putting a single action into language before acting.

Living my life with dogs, cats, goats, and chickens, I am very sympathetic to the view that animals have much higher levels of thought than people wish to give them credit for, but I don't think your reference to "perceptual-motor interaction" touches on those higher levels of animal intelligence. That is to say, I agree with you to the extent you suggest that there are all types of thought without language, but I believe your example of "how to" language points to the least controversial one that is generally conceded by the staunchest of deniers of meaningful thought without language.

ucarr

...logic is not a language, but a component of language... — Hanover

Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. This feels intuitively like something useful to my argument, but, first, I must ask how symbolic logic can stand alone (which it can) without being its own language?

Hanover

Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. This feels intuitively like something useful to my argument, but, first, I must ask how symbolic logic can stand alone (which it can) without being its own language? — ucarr

It is the symbol that is the syntactic element of the language and the meaning that is the semantic element of the language.

English: "If I go to the store, I will buy milk."
Symbolic logic: S --> M

In English, the syntax were those certain words, and should I have said "If I now am go to store, I after have milk,' perhaps I mean the same thing, but my syntax is all screwed up. You hear that in pidgins, where a foreign speaker can be understood without properly using accepted format.

In symbolic language, the semantical content of your symbols is heavily abstracted, but there still must remain an accepted syntactical form.

Consider:

S --> M
S
Therefore M.

This is logically sound, yet it's entirely irrelevant whether we are talking about stores and milk, meaning the specific semantical content of the symbols has become irrelevant, as for any S that occurs M will follow, regardless of what S or M represent.

If I create a syntactical error in a syllogism, that will likely negate the truth of the syllogism, but that has to do with the precision and limited room for error when your syntax is so abbreviated.

I think a good example of a logical syntax error is one that occurs quite literally in computer programming. The computer immediately recognizes what you've attempted is not "understood" by the computer. You've just spoken gibberish to the computer as it might have much less room for error than a human in understanding a pidgin.

Anyway, somewhat nascent thoughts on my behalf with some of this, so tinker with what I've started if some of this doesn't hold.

Joshs

↪Hanover

I disagree that "formal logic" and "Fortran" are similarly related to language in that both represent specific uses of the language.

I see formal logic as the semantical component of language, which does not represent a structure , but a meaning, whereas Fortran is a specific syntactical language form used to convey a semantical meaning. Under any language (Fortran, French, English), you will need to adhere to a logical based semantics for coherence, but the form can vary among types of languages. That is, logic is not a language, but a component of language, whereas Fortran is a type of language. — Hanover

How about this: Fortran is a specific language offering its own semantics based on a logical syntax whose form is in turned based on a certain semantics. Meanwhile , formal logic is an empty syntax whose formal features are based on a certain semantics.

I agree with you to the extent you suggest that there are all types of thought without language, but I believe your example of "how to" language points to the least controversial one that is generally conceded by the staunchest of deniers of meaningful thought without language. — Hanover

Most of those depictions of ‘how to’ language ( like Dreyfus , for instance) deny that skills are conceptual in nature. That’s what allows them to deny meaningful thought without language

ucarr

Causal understanding of water displacement by a crow

It seems that the crow is using cognition. If the crow has no language, then it is using cognition outside of language. — RussellA

I infer you've concluded the video shows no practice of language by the crow.

In this context, I note that language is expanded in scope to include all of the sensory forms of signification (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). — ucarr

If you can say it, you can think it — ucarr

With my two above quotes of myself I lay foundation for making the claim that a broadly inclusive definition of language allows language production via the five senses. Bearing this in mind, I claim the crow understands and practices the visual language of water displacement towards making the desired object reachable.

From the evidence of the crow's purposeful behavior, I infer the claimed visual language was learned through observation. The visual objects within the frame are the syntax of the visual language and the displacement effect (with acquisition of desired object) is the semantics of the visual language.

In making my claim, I'm stretching the common usage of "language" in an effort to make it suitable as evidence and support.

I argue that my use of the stretch is not pettifogging and foolish because it's of a piece with claiming that language is not limited to verbal practitioners. I claim, instead, that the distribution of language capacity is not binary: humans linguistic; remainder (of animal kingdom) non-linguistic. The distribution of language practice comprises a range that possesses no sharp and distinct boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic. From here I proceed to claiming perception_cognition_language are not discreet.

You might argue the crow had no intention to communicate a method for acquiring the desired object via water displacement, and thus makes no practice of language on behalf of the observer. I acknowledge the range of language practice has discernible levels of sophistication, especially as it pertains to intentional communication.

Baden

I think the preposition can be labeled as being a particular type of conjunction. It is the conjunction of (among other categories) space and time — ucarr

Category error and general confusion here. Conjunctions join phrases, clauses, words, and sentences. They are defined in syntactical not physical or temporal terms. Prepositions can be prepositions of time or space, and those are distinct categories. Both terms originated in classical grammar. For the purposes of your OP, a functional grammar, like SFL, might be more useful.

↪ucarr

Language is a very particuliar form of skilled behaviour that, yes, is not uni-modal; but nevertheless has very specific properties that are well defined and understood and distinguish it from other forms of skilled behavior and non-linguistic communication. So, American Sign Language, for example, is a perfectly valid language but me making a cup of tea or physically showing you how to do that, more analogical to your crow example, is not.

Some of the specific attributes that define language include:

1. Individual modifiable units
2. Negation
3. Question
4. Displacement (e.g. tense)
S. Hypotheticals and counterfactuals
6. Open endedness (novel utterances)
7. Stimulus freedom (open responses)

You can't make crow behaviour into individual units that can be reorganized to meet the criteria above. Not only is there no language there. There is almost nothing at all like a language,

RussellA

I infer you've concluded the video shows no practice of language by the crow. — ucarr

It depends what you mean by language.

Britannica defines language as "a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves." However, birds, as well as other animals do have language, in the sense that their calls, postures and other behaviours do convey information to other birds and animals, such as location of predators and sources of food.

The crow clearly cognizes that the food is on top of the water, and so is aware of the concept "on top of", which we call a preposition.

The crow has an awareness of logic. The crow knows that the water level will rise if an object is placed into the water. Therefore, the crow knows that if it places an object into the water, then the water level will rise.

Other crows learn that the water level will rise if an object is placed into it, not through verbal communication, but through behavioural communication, by observation of the behaviour of the crow attempting to reach the food.

There are two main theories as to how language evolved. Either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. As feathers were an evolutionary adaptation helping to keep the birds warm, once evolved, they could be used for flight. Thereby, a by-product of evolution rather than a specific adaptation. Similarly for language, the development of language is relatively recent, between 30,000 and 1000,000 years ago. As the first animals emerged about 750 million years ago, this suggests that language is a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation.

I would propose that the human is not conscious of 99% of those events within the body necessary for the body to survive in the world, eg, heart rate, etc. I would also propose that 99% of what the human is conscious of at any moment in time is not linguistic, eg, when driving we don't have time to verbalise everything we are aware of within each constantly changing scene. I would conclude that at any moment in time, 99.99% (metaphorically speaking) of the actions taken by the body necessary to survive in the world it finds itself are not linguistic. IE, human interactions with the world are not fundamentally qualitatively different to that of a non-linguistic crow, although admittedly are quantitatively different.

Humans don't need language to survive in the world, but language enables the communication of thoughts between people. This creates a collective mind that is far more powerful than any individual mind making it up. Language thereby allows each individual a greater understanding of the world than would be possible without language. With such understanding, they have the possibility to significantly alter the environment they find themselves within.

alan1000

I don't think any of the comments quite addresses ucarr's point. It's true that he says "If I can say it, then I can think it". But this is not the first step in logical thinking. I think he would agree that the perception of logical connection is essentially non-verbal, and language follows later as an attempt to communicate the logical connection to others. Five million years ago, proto-humans understood that they were wet because it was raining. The ability to express this thought more or less accurately in language must have followed much later.

alan1000

But I accidentally posted the previous before I was ready. I was going to add that the pre-occupation with english-style prepositions may be questionable. Chinese, for example, has a different set of linguistic conventions for dealing with the prepositional context. "Dao wo zher lai" means "come to me", but does not actually contain any word which would translate directly as a preposition in English.

Baden

However, birds, as well as other animals do have language, in the sense that their calls, postures and other behaviours do convey information to other birds and animals, such as location of predators and sources of food. — RussellA

That's animal communication not language. Conveying information is not a high enough bar for language.

Baden

Chinese, for example, has a different set of linguistic conventions for dealing with the prepositional context. "Dao wo zher lai" means "come to me", but does not actually contain any word which would translate directly as a preposition in English. — alan1000

Wouldn't surprise me. Prepositions in Irish are integrated with the subject. For example, "to me' is one word. A much more central word class are verbs.

Baden

The OP does remind me of a quote I really like by Irish philologist Richard Chenevix Trench.

"Grammar is the logic of speech, even as logic is the grammar of reason.''

RussellA

I think he would agree that the perception of logical connection is essentially non-verbal, and language follows later as an attempt to communicate the logical connection to others — alan1000

I agree @ucarr did write i) "grammar, the inferential platform and medium of language, is synonymous with logic" ii) Grammar is logic iii) logic is almost the same word for human utterance iv) Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. However, I don't know whether @ucarr is saying that logic or language came first.

My belief is that language is a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation. This is the theory posed by linguist Noam Chomsky and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, in that language evolved as a result of other evolutionary processes, essentially making it a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. The idea that language was a spandrel, a term coined by Gould, flew in the face of natural selection. In fact, Gould and Chomsky pose the theory that many human behaviours are spandrels. These various spandrels came about because of a process Darwin called "pre-adaptation," which is now known as exaptation. This is the idea that a species uses an adaptation for a purpose other than what it was initially meant for. One example is the theory that bird feathers were an adaptation for keeping the bird warm, and were only later used for flying. Chomsky and Gould hypothesize that language may have evolved simply because the physical structure of the brain evolved, or because cognitive structures that were used for things like tool making or rule learning were also good for complex communication. This falls in line with the theory that as our brains became larger, our cognitive functions increased.

The sentence "come here" doesn't contain any preposition, yet signifies a spatio-temporal relation.

Hallucinogen

Not quite. You're correct to link grammar and logic. Logic itself is a language composed of a syntax.
The nature of spacetime must ultimately be language, since language is the most general algebraic structure. For something to obey rules it's got to conform to the rules of language otherwise it's unintelligible. In spacetime you've got objects, these correspond to nouns, you've got time, which correspond to verbs and functions and you've got space which is prepositional. There isn't anything in spacetime that isn't describable in language. Notice how all attempts to unify the sciences involve trying to boil them all down to one language within a unified grammar. The thoughts we model reality with must also be continuous with that reality and continuity implies shared structure. In the CTMU this is called the metaformal system and it couples that which you describe the universe with that which structures it.

https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Principle_of_Linguistic_Reducibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIv4GiDGOk - language of spacetime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXvUyrhAaN8 - reality is a language

RussellA

That's animal communication not language. Conveying information is not a high enough bar for language. — Baden

What is language for if not conveying information ?

ucarr

I'm trying to articulate supporting arguments for (2) claims : a) grammar introduces all speakers to logic; b) spacetime is the ultimate conjunction.

My conceptualization of logic is based on this premise: logic is a synonym for continuity and, moreover, logical operations (such as language) are concerned with the parsing of continuity. Logical operations, therefore, express themselves as systematic analyses of a whole for the sake of manipulation-with-intention. This said manipulation, ultimately, must gravitate back to its source. Analysis always has a gravitational orientation back to its source, the whole. Language, viewed thus, expresses itself as a systematically modulated medium of derivatives in search of a whole.

Let me illustrate with a parallel. When a prism parses the visible light spectrum into a rainbow of colors, white light, the whole, gets parsed into a language, as it were, of color derivatives in search of the whole from whence they came.

All of this is to say that the grammar of language, no matter how cognitive & cerebral, remains rooted in the physicality of spacetime.

Now I can present my foundational premise: logic = continuity = (literal, physical) motion.

As a general statement about logic (and therefore about language), I claim that it is a concomitant of motion.

Of course my above claim is subject to cogent refutation.

Baden, RussellA and alan1000 have made responses of essential importance.

So, American Sign Language, for example, is a perfectly valid language but me making a cup of tea or physically showing you how to do that, more analogical to your crow example, is not. — Baden

Our views differ in terms of the quantum vs. the continuum. Baden says the boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic is quantum; I say it is continuum.

There are two main theories as to how language evolved. Either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. — RussellA

Is the human brain hard-wired for language, or did it reconfigure itself for language in response to environmental prompts? Since the entire animal kingdom encounters environmental prompts, I lean towards believing the high-cognition version of language that is human is hard-wired.

I think he (ucarr) would agree that the perception of logical connection is essentially non-verbal, and language follows later as an attempt to communicate the logical connection to others. — alan1000

Yes. Language arises directly from the physical environment of animation, and remains rooted there, no matter how refined into abstract cerebration it becomes.

I quote these important observations of correspondents in order to acknowledge their impact upon my arguments which, given the cogency of the observations, must presently remain tentative.

Baden

What is language for if not conveying information ? — RussellA

Conveying information is a necessary but not sufficient condition for language. That should be obvious from what I wrote. Passing wind may convey information as may a million other non-linguistic events. Language is special and specially defined in comparison.

Baden

Our views differ in terms of the quantum vs. the continuum. Baden says the boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic is quantum; I say it is continuum. — ucarr

Not exactly. Though language has specific attributes that help identify it, there is room for debate around some of those attributes, e. g. recursion. And if we are to take it that language evolved over time, we ought to make conceptual room for a theorised primitive proto-language. However, there is no serious consideration given in academic linguistics to incorporating crow behaviour or tea-making behaviour under even the broadest umbrella understanding of language. That doesn't mean some of your other ideas aren't pertinent but you might be being a tad overambitious in the scope of your project here.

ToothyMaw

↪ucarr

↪Baden

I'm trying to follow along here a little, but I don't understand any of this. What could logic have to do with spacetime, for instance? The OP speculates people are introduced to logic through language, and thus logic and language are irreducible. They then must have developed alongside each other from some proto-language, and for some reason this means that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction between ... ?

Baden

The sentence "come here" doesn't contain any preposition, yet signifies a spatio-temporal relation. — RussellA

Yes, and can form a "complete thought" due to the fact that it fulfils at minimum the necessary requirements of a clause, i. e. it contains a verb and everything necessary for the verb in its syntactical context (its complements). And a clause whether singularly acting as a sentence or doing so in conjunction with other clauses, forms the most important semantic building block of language. Here again, the verb is central, and prepositions peripheral.

(Edited for clarity).

Hallucinogen

Passing wind may convey information as may a million other non-linguistic events. — Baden

Passing wind can't be inherently non-linguistic otherwise you wouldn't be able to identify it and communicate it to us via language. In otherwords, it has to be language-like for it to enter into and be informationally accepted by your linguistic model. If the structure it exists in weren't itself a language, you would be able to say what "it" is using language, as there'd be no structure connecting it with your identification of it.

Baden

↪ToothyMaw

The OP make some leaps I would need to look more into. Just trying to clarify a few points from my own background in linguistics, so far.

Baden

↪Hallucinogen

I can identify rocks and communicate their existence. Rocks are not a language either. So, I was clarifying what a language is and isn't, not saying that anything could not be put into language. And this is me being extremely charitable in interpreting your objection.

Hallucinogen

↪Baden

You claimed passing wind is non-linguistic so I refuted this claim. Same goes for rocks.

ToothyMaw

↪Baden

Yes, you seem to be competent at linguistics. I only know the basics - and not very well.

↪ucarr

Maybe try to be a little more focused? My problem has always been what appears to be yours: profundity. You or I might be smart, but it is difficult to write profoundly all the time. I find that I get the best product if I stay down to earth and then expand on what I'm writing.

Grammar Introduces Logic

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