Here's a curiosity. I only noticed yesterday that the underlined words should be swapped around. — Srap Tasmaner
Do you think it was deliberate? — unenlightened
But this is surely the death knell for any complete description. — unenlightened
I think "efficiency" is a key term that is missing here, as in efficiently using words to communicate, and that includes being able to interpret similarly sounding, shaped, and typed words in the improper context, as meaning the words that the they sound like in the proper context, so that they don't have to be repeated. — Harry Hindu
If Davidson is claiming that people generally have "complex theories" about the rules of language use, which he says in the passage you quoted that I responded to he assumes "must be about right" then I would say that is an inapt use of 'theory'. for the reasons I already gave. — Janus
...in the case of language the hearer shares a complex system or theory with the speaker, a system which makes possible the articulation of logical relations between utterances, and explains the ability to interpret novel utterances in an organized way. This answer has been suggested, in one form or another, by many philosophers and linguists, and I assume it must in some sense be right. The difficulty lies in getting clear about what this sense is...
Most speakers and hearers probably don't entertain any "complex theories" at all. A complex theory may be able to be formulated after the fact based on analysis of practice... — Janus
I suggest that you carefully read the aforementioned pages to better understand what Davidson is doing with "theory". — creativesoul
I've already read the paper. What do YOU think he's doing with it? — Janus
To say that an explicit theory for interpreting a speaker is a model of the interpreter’s linguistic competence is not to suggest that the interpreter knows any such theory...
In any case, claims about what would constitute a satisfactory theory are not, as I said, claims about the propositional knowledge of an interpreter, nor are they claims about the details of the inner workings of some part of the brain. They are rather claims about what must be said to give a satisfactory description of the competence of the interpreter. We cannot describe what an interpreter can do except by appeal to a recursive theory of a certain sort. It does not add anything to this thesis to say that if the theory does correctly describe the competence of an interpreter, some mechanism in the interpreter must correspond to the theory.
Principle (2) says that for communication to succeed, a systematic method of interpretation must be shared. (I shall henceforth assume there is no harm in calling such a method a theory, as if the interpreter were using the theory we use to describe his competence...
If Davidson's report is accurate, then you're objecting to the standard description of linguistic competence.
Are you denying the accuracy of the report, or are you questioning the standard description itself? — creativesoul
To say that an explicit theory for interpreting a speaker is a model of the interpreter’s linguistic competence is not to suggest that the interpreter knows any such theory...
We cannot describe what an interpreter can do except by appeal to a recursive theory of a certain sort.
theory — Janus
It's just shoptalk.
"Theory of meaning for a language" is just Davidson-speak for a semantics for that language.
Not expected to be something you're aware of unless something goes wrong that needs attention to fix. — Srap Tasmaner
We regularly produce speech errors (I haven't found a solid source on the frequency) — Srap Tasmaner
Why isn't our speech production better at its job? — Srap Tasmaner
...it points to the fact that word selection and grammar are secondary to general communication... — Isaac
Complete description of what? — Srap Tasmaner
— p. 262, my underliningSomeone who grasps the fact that Mrs Malaprop means ‘epithet’ when she says ‘epitaph’ must give ‘epithet’ all the powers ‘epitaph’ has for many other people. Only a full recursive theory can do justice to these powers. These remarks do not depend on supposing Mrs Malaprop will always make this ‘mistake’; once is enough to summon up a passing theory assigning a new role to ‘epitaph’.
Trivial nonsense. Trying to solve the problem of interpreting what is meant by an unintended word that sounds like the word that was intended is done differently that interpreting what is meant by an unintended word that doesn't sound like what was intended. You're talking about two different processes for solving the problem of interpreting what was meant because of the relationship, or association between the word that wasn't intended and the one that was (the unintended word sounds like the intended word vs not sounding like the intended word).While I agree that that is the usual meaning of the term, the substituted words need not rhyme or sound similar. The etymology of malapropism renders it close to 'misappropriate'. And in relation to this discussion concerning how we are able to understand what is meant when a misappropriate word is substituted for an appropriate one, rhyming or not seems pretty much irrelevant. — Janus
You may have something here. We regularly produce speech errors (I haven't found a solid source on the frequency). Why? Why isn't our speech production better at its job?
I would guess the answer is it's too slow and too expensive. Perfect is the enemy of good. — Srap Tasmaner
I'm not sure about this stat or how it interprets "speech errors", and what impact speech impairments have here, but it if this is correct it seems to indicate that our speech production is 99.999% accurate, so I think that qualifies as good, but not perfect. It seems like it might actually be better than the accuracy of computers communicating with each other and they follow strict protocols.About 1 in every 1,000 words for adults - according to Garnham A, Shillcock R, Brown GDA, Mill AID, Cutler A. Slips of the tongue in the London–Lund corpus of spontaneous speech. Linguistics. 1981. — Isaac
The high necessity of working memory indicates that learning how people use words is very useful for survival, so extra energy that is used to extrapolate what is communicated from sounds and scribbles is necessary for survival. Even though if what is actually said isn't important, how certain scribbles and sounds were used to communicate is. Every use is knowledge acquired about how to use scribbles and sounds to communicate.Why do we process in parallel and not series? Possibly efficiency, as you say, but the high necessity of working memory involvement rather negates that theory, it's possibly even less efficient. Possibly it points to the fact that word selection and grammar are secondary to general communication and have been 'tacked on' in evolutionary terms. — Isaac
According to conscious beings, like myself. It is not only observable in my mind that sounds are compared, but logical in that you can only compare what appears in consciousness.The comparison of sounds, and their similarities and differences, happens within consciousness.
— Harry Hindu
According to whom? — Isaac
It was minutia from the get-go considering the assumptions built into the OP.Threads such as this tend to squabbling minutia towards their demise. We might all agree on the resilience of language in the face of apparent error and misuse, and the impossibility of an algorithmic account of how one understands what has been said. — Banno
whether it was the underlined words that needed to be swapped, or the previous occurrences — unenlightened
But if one reads the passage out of context - without already knowing the direction of the paper, then one could not tell ... — unenlightened
Trying to solve the problem of interpreting what is meant by an unintended word that sounds like the word that was intended is done differently that interpreting what is meant by an unintended word that doesn't sound like what was intended. You're talking about two different processes for solving the problem of interpreting what was meant because of the relationship, or association between the word that wasn't intended and the one that was (the unintended word sounds like the intended word vs not sounding like the intended word). — Harry Hindu
I'm down. — creativesoul
(Just for jollies, I emailed Lepore yesterday to ask about this. I don't think I'd be breaking confidence to quote in full the response I received this morning: "Thanks.") — Srap Tasmaner
Processing information is an algorithmic process. — Harry Hindu
An algorithmic process — Banno
When each of us hears the use of a specific malapropism, do we not use the same method to solve the problem of interpreting what was meant? — Harry Hindu
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