/lit/ - Literature

>>20401832
There is no such a thing as a meaningful sentence. Read Wittgenstein.

Mentalese is encoded into the fabric of the universe. Each separate language is just a variation on this common theme.

Language, like mathematics, exists metaphysically as a part of Ein Sof ("the one" for you neoplatonists).

>>20401832
>>Therefore, language pre-existed humans.
Well, duh? There were intelligent hominids before Anatomically Modern Homo Sapiens came along. Hell, Cetaceans and Prairie Dogs have language, so I don't see the big deal here.

im pretty sure if u leave two people with no training they will develop their own language, i think there was some family that ran into the woods during the bolshevik revolution and when they found them in the 70s or so, the kids spoke their own homemade language

OP discovered communication, let's give him a round of applause.

>since the meaning of a sentence relies on the simultaneous understanding of subject and predicate that are both understood in terms of each other.
"Fire!"
>No one is born with knowledge of language,
unborn babies are already learning a language, since they hear it from the outside
>and language is produced and understood only by minds
>Therefore, language pre-existed humans.
Is this some sophistic attempt to prove God again? Jesus, find a better hobby.

>>20401832
>Language can only be learned via imitation of already meaningful sentences
wrong

>>20401832
Now you realize that God spoke reality into existence and language derives from Him

>>20402080
Based. God is Logos.

>>20401832
>Language can only be learned via imitation of already meaningful sentences,
>>No one is born with knowledge of language
Reductio ad absurdum would be that if this is the case, then no one would be capable of any language at all.

So it is said in the Sefer Yetzirah.

>>20402034
>"Fire!"
That's not a sentence
>unborn babies are already learning a language, since they hear it from the outside
They're not born with knowledge of language though.

>>20401859
Individuals can develop their own person language so the brain can communicate with itself.

>>20402038
> (1) If language were acquired by a means other than imitation, then the reference of the first subject would be in terms of only the first predicate.

> (2) So the origin of language in a non-imitative theory would begin with the subject and predicate relating only in terms of each other: the first claim would be meaningless, lacking the relating of other words to the words in the subject and predicate.

> (3) If language were created through the simultaneous understanding of more than one subject and predicate, properly contextualized by reality and memory, then there would need to be many different words, all understood at once.

> (4) In order to make the words meaningful, the syntactic and semantic structures of language must be understood before the creation of the words, and certain words would need to be understood before the first sentence.

>(5) But knowledge of language can only be acquired through language; i.e., language is not self-evident, and so (4) is a contradiction.

> (6) Thus, language cannot be acquired through any means except imitation.

>>20402138
>That's not a sentence
Source?

>>20401832
first what do you mean by these
>language
>understanding/understood
>knowledge
>produced
>humans

>>20402183
First of all it has no meaning. Second a sentence needs at the very least one substantive and a copula or verb. Otherwise you would be operating under the assumption that animals are capable of constructing sentences, because animals use sounds non-semantically to communicate (for example making noise to indicate some affection in birds, however there is no semantic meaning in the sounds, they are just alerts and exclamations, like "fire!").

>>20401832
Our brains have evolved to have an increasing "language instinct" as our languages have increased in complexity. But early language likely consisted of one word, onomatopoeic phrases. We can see this whenever children have to invent words for things they don't understand. Toddlers will call dogs and cats "woofwoofs" and "meowmeows."
At some point one group of cavemen figured out how to say "bear near" instead of just "bear" and natural selection heavily preferred brains which were able to connect concepts. The division of a sentence into subject and object is just the projection of the dualistic bias of the human mind onto these symbols.

>>20402197
yelling "fire" is basically like yelling "[there is a] fire" as the copula is implied but not explicitly stated and the full meaning of the sentence is retained just by context

>>20402204
>Our brains have evolved
stopped reading there. Seek the word of Christ, save yourself.

>>20402213
"Fire!" without context has no meaning, it could also just as well mean "I want fire" from an unbiased perspective. If you say "there is a fire", even if it is only implied (which requires a semantic background already in the mind, which refutes your point anyway), that is a sentence and requires simultaneous understanding of subject and predicate (subject: existence/reality/this-thing, predicate: fire, or the other way around depending on your semantic view of predication of existence, which makes no difference here anyway). My only concern is whether existence can even be considered a meaningful predicate or subject, in which case even where there is an implied context, the sentence would still not be meaningful unless the subjects and predicates are determinate things (like "fire is hot" [meaningful], as opposed to "there is a fire" [not meaningful unless qualified implicitly or explicitly with a preposition or other subject]).

>>20401841
Based
>>20401844
Cringe

>>20402197
>First of all it has no meaning.
I run past you and yell "Fire!", and you find no meaning in that whatsoever? Interesting.
>Second a sentence needs at the very least one substantive and a copula or verb.
"Я - чeлoвeк." = "I am a man."
One substantive, no copulas, no verbs.
Hmm, are you trying to say that Russians are animals?

>>20402294
>"Fire!" without context has no meaning,
Like literally every other sentence ever.

I think there's certain sounds and tones that are basically hard-coded axioms the same way knowledge of space, time and causality are. It can't be a coincidence that basically every culture and language has "mama" or some variation thereof.

>>20402420
>I run past you and yell "Fire!", and you find no meaning in that whatsoever?
It's only meaningful due to past semantic associations between the two actions (again, subject and predicate just in a different relation - panic and fire). It has no meaning by itself. If you were to express the meaning of the sentence explicitly, it would be "our house is on fire", which has meaning independent of any contextual associations. Because we have mental associations with panic and this latter sentence, we associate the two and assume that "fire!" + visible panic = "there is a fire in our vicinity." This is still only an assumption though, albeit a fair one. "Fire" alone is insufficient.
>One substantive
Two substantives. I is the subject, man is the predicate.
>no copulas
It's clearly implied. You're using the exact same error you used before with "fire." I don't know Russian but it's likely that phrase is a contraction of a more regular expression which would normally explicitly use subject + copula + predicate. In Latin the subject is contracted into the verb for example and is not given explicitly, yet it is still there in semantic logic. Think of some generic expression in Russian which is not commonly used, like "the machine is yellow", and you will find that there are two substantives and a copula, even if one or two of them are contracted into another structure as in Latin. This is simply the error of ignoring semantic context and therefore assuming that meaning does not exist.
If you still don't believe me, the easiest way to demonstrate it is by me asking you this: How would the sentence change to state "I am a woman", " you are a man", "I am not a man", "you are not a man." Different structures or words will be added to the sentence to alter the meaning. "You" and "I" have different meanings. "am" and "am not" have different meanings. "Man" and "Woman" have different meanings.
>>20402425
No.

>>20401832
Language predates humans, but human language does not, it evolved with and into us. What qualifies as "language" is also very loosely defined, a baby does not learn to cry when it is hungry or sore by imitation. You can get as autistic as you want about the distinction between communication and language, but it will just be pedantry for the sake of pedantry at the end of the day.

>>20401858
Bretty much :DDDD

>>20401859
Twins also do this very infrequently, and in fact if you leave a human baby with some other specie of animal too long without human contact they will imitate them and their "language" too. There are currently a number of feral children who are stuck within the mindset that they are dogs. The jury is still out on whether it's possible for them to learn proper human habits, actions and language afterwards, there are some cases where they have and some where they have not.

>>20402425
Imagine being so intellectually incapable of being wrong that you deny this lmfao

>>20401832
Fails to account for myopia. People presuppose that they are the subject of every experience because, from their perspectives, THEY ARE. Then all you need is an object line, give me that nipple or take me outside, mom bitch, and there you go, a subject relating to a predicate in an emergency, human way as opposed to how dogs communicate by licking each other's asses.

>>20402488
>Two substantives. I is the subject, man is the predicate.
I (я) is a pronoun, not a substantive.
>no copulas
>It's clearly implied. You're using the exact same error you used before with "fire." I don't know Russian but it's likely that phrase is a contraction of a more regular expression which would normally explicitly use subject + copula + predicate.
No, that's the most regular and common way to say it.
Curiously, when "Fire!" needs context (panic) to be expanded and understood as "There's a fire" it's not a sentence, but when a Russian sentence "I - man" needs context (this type of sentences requires a particular intonation) to be understood as "I am a man" it suddenly is a sentence alright.
>Think of some generic expression in Russian which is not commonly used, like "the machine is yellow", and you will find that there are two substantives and a copula, even if one or two of them are contracted into another structure as in Latin.
Maшинa жeлтaя.
Only one substantive - "machine".
"Yellow" is an adjective. (Do you know what a substantive is, anon?)
Can't see any copulas.
>If you still don't believe me, the easiest way to demonstrate it is by me asking you this: How would the sentence change to state "I am a woman", " you are a man", "I am not a man", "you are not a man." Different structures or words will be added to the sentence to alter the meaning. "You" and "I" have different meanings. "am" and "am not" have different meanings. "Man" and "Woman" have different meanings.
The meaning would change, just like it would change in the sentence "Fire!" if instead you yelled "Ice cream!".
>No.
You haven't gotten to Saussure yet in your linguistics 101 class?
Seriously though, dude, you don't even know how to recognise parts of speech, and you mix them up with syntactic functions. You're also ignoring that the concept of nominal sentences exist. It feels absurd, honestly, all of this was taught to me in primary school and I can't take you seriously when you clearly don't have such basic skills. Nominal sentences are not an infrequent phenomenon and if you can't tell them apart from animals grunting at each other maybe your linguistic model is shit in the first place? (It does smell of anglocentric generativist crap.)

>>20401832
You've failed to define language, and haven't proven that people do in fact understand the terms each other uses. Boom. Refuted.

>>20402927
>I (я) is a pronoun, not a substantive.
It is substantive (= substantial) as a pronoun. Nouns and pronouns are basically the same in semantic function, or at least for the purpose of this discussion.
>No, that's the most regular and common way to say it.
Yes, which was my point. Regular = likely to have implicit meaning and not be as explicit as normal, irregular phrases which can't be abbreviated for the common parlance.
>"Yellow" is an adjective. (Do you know what a substantive is, anon?)
I was not implying yellow was a substantive because it actually does not matter in this case. The copula again is implicit, because the form of expression would be different if you were to say "the machine is becoming yellow." The form of language has to change in order to express "is" as opposed to "becomes." It seems that in Russian "is" may be implied in most basic expressions of predication, in which case there will have to be an addition for other words which can't also be implicit without losing meaning, like "becomes."
>The meaning would change, just like it would change in the sentence "Fire!" if instead you yelled "Ice cream!".
Exactly, except in the examples you gave there is no meaning to begin with unless it is implied by the context. There is no meaning, taken alone, in saying "fire" or "ice-cream." They simply do not possess any semantic substance by themselves.
>You haven't gotten to Saussure yet in your linguistics 101 class?
Make an argument instead of citing names. So far you've struggled to follow along with anything.
>You're also ignoring that the concept of nominal sentences exis
No, I've already explained that those have actual implied verbs or copulas, which is obvious. You're again making the same mistake as you did with fire, you still don't understand that omitting a particular word(s) does not mean it is not implied and necessary the production of meaning in a sentence.
>(It does smell of anglocentric generativist crap.)
Ah yes, it's another idiot who thinks he is deep because he has an understanding of language which is based in obscurantism and attempting to create confusion by obfuscating the reality of it. Do yourself a favor and go read Aristotle's Organon. It's not perfect but it might educate you more than you've been already.

>>20402166
still wrong

>>20401832
I'm not really sure what you mean. Language is a product of evolution and the need to communicate with one another

>>20401841
>Read
>/lit/

>>20401832
>>20401832
>Therefore, language pre-existed humans.
That is a prime example of Non-sequitur.

This proves that Subject and action predates humans.
Language was created by humans to refer to subject and action.

"People have died of cancer before cigarette were invented, so smoking doesn't cause cancer"

>>20401841
BRAAAAAAAAAAAPP BRAAAAP BRAP BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP
despite expressing it in fart, the last sentence was meaningful because it express beyond a shadow of a doubt my feeling towards you, Wittgenstein and various other similar midwits. kindly drink bleach.

>>20401848
mathematics IS the one language

Language is the vocal imitation of signs and symbols

/thread

>>20401841
fpbp
/thread

>>20402927
Russian doesn’t use to be in the present tense because it’s implied.
мaшинa жeлтaя sounds more like “yellow car” than the car is yellow, which is why мaшинa жeлтa would be used instead to remove that ambiguity