Words and Rules Dialogue 5? And some Debriefing – D59

We were supposed to have a dialogue on Words and Rules, and I say suppose because only Chacho, Kata, Carmen, and Mabe (although not completely) read, and the rest of us didn’t read so the “dialogue” was more of a time of silence. Only a few comments were produced by Chacho, Carmen, and Kata, so after Pablito dropped his Coca-Cola (great ice-breaker though), Bert made us realize that the ones that didn’t read should go to the outer circle and so we did. Still the dialogue was weak and little interesting. I admit part of the fault. After it, Bert told us something important of Pinker’s theory, which we are going to revise later, but I think nobody understood him because of the language.

The debriefing was ok, we talked about the Convivio and other stuff I don’t quite remember. 

Words and Rules D2 (Ch. 3, 4, 5) and Debriefing – D55

The day didn’t look to good after a discussion like the one on Euclid, until our dialogue of Words and Rules. We were a small group, I think 12, and we had a very good dialogue. We respected the rubrics, asked genuine questions, were profound with the text, and had a great interaction of ideas. I didn’t take notes, but I recorded it. One of the most important things we discussed was the distinction between the theory developed by Chomsky and Halle (generative phonology, rules rule, rationalist, rules), and the theory of Rumelhart and McClelland (there are no rules, empiricism, words). Another important point is what Steven Pinker and Prince proposes according to these two theories:

“Prince and I have proposed a hybrid in which Chomsky and Halle are basically right about regular inflection and Rumelhart and McClelland are basically right about irregular inflection. Our proposal is simply the traditional words-and-rules theory with a twist. Regular verbs are computed by a rule that combines a symbol for a verb stem with a symbol for the suffix. Irregular verbs are pairs of words retrieved from the mental dictionary, a part of memory. Here is the twist: Memory is not a list of unrelated slots, like RAM in a computer, but is associative, a bit like the Rumelhart-McClelland pattern associator memory. Not only are words linked to words, but bits of words are linked to bits of words.” Page 117-118.

Words and Rules Dialogue 1 – D50

For this first true dialogue on Words and Rules, only ten of us were there on time. The ones on the outer circle were Isa, Marce, Alejo, JavierT, Lucía, and Gaby. Only Isa and most of the time Marce and Alejo, were doing a good role being on the outer circle. The other ones were on their phones and not paying attention at all.

The dialogue was good, very organized, and following the rubric. We talked about the main topic of the book, its meta-question you may say. We concluded that by viewing on the preface, “This book tries to illuminate the nature of language and mind by choosing a single phenomenon and examining it from every angle imaginable. That phenomenon is regular and irregular verbs, the bane of every language student.” I see this as the main topic is the nature of language, which can be transmitted through words and rules, and exemplified with regular and irregular verbs. As we talked more about the book, we discussed a mixture of the first three chapters although our focus was on chapter one. These questions popped during the dialogue, What is language? Is language inherent to humans or is it something we learn or imitate? Is language an spontaneous order? Well, my thoughts are that language is inherent to humans, because we will always find a way to communicate, whether spoken or written, but we will. Now, spoken language, grammar, words, and rules are products of an evolutionary process of spontaneous order. Babies do not imitate older people, well not in the long term, since they find the rules that govern their particular language. So, yes language is getting more interesting, who would’ve said?

Steven Pinker’s video and Debriefing – D46

After lunch, we watched Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain. I must say that a lecture about words, rules, and interfaces does not sound so appealing, but it was a great complement for our reading on his book, Words and Rules. As a matter of fact, the video was entertaining and funny. Instead of writing particular facts, Bert suggested us to take our notes as questions, and so I did that. It was a good call.

Later, we debriefed the Pinker’s lecture, which there is not so much to mention except our increasing interest on this topic. Then we debriefed the day, and mainly talked about logistics regarding Euclid’s classes and the Thanksgiving lunch. Clap, clap, clap; the day ended.