Day sixty-six -- Can PreBabel encompass the Martian language?
[quote="Khagan"] My point was simple: you appear to be only familiar with two languages, which are, in some ways, quite similar and in no way representative of the full diversity of languages. Specifically, you appear to have no familiarity with inflecting or agglutinating languages. Until you though, your time spent working on language universals is a waste--plain and simple. [/quote]
Your critique seemingly has the following parts.
1. One fact -- There are some very unique features in the inflecting or agglutinating languages, and they go way beyond the scope of either Chinese or English. I will call these features as "Feature H", or FH in short.
2. One conclusion -- Without knowing the FH, there is no genuine chance to construct a "Universal Language". By only familiar with two languages, which are, in some ways, quite similar and in no way representative of the full diversity of languages, your time spent working on language universals is a waste--plain and simple. You used an analogy to support this conclusion.
3. One analogy -- like trying to develop a Grand Unified Theory of physics without ever familiarizing yourself with Quantum Mechanics.
4. One statement from sangi39 -- he (Khagan) was stating that PreBabel cannot be claimed to be a universal language based on a set of predictions based on one set of observations regarding two languages only.
Lets begin with the analogy first. Many disciplines needs the Quantum Mechanics as the foundation, such as, super conductivity, solid state physics, quantum chemistry, high energy physics, ..., Grand Unified Theory (GUT), etc.. With a detailed analysis, your analogy can have, at least, two situations (cases).
Case 1 -- PreBabel without knowing FH = GUT without knowing Quantum Mechanics
Case 2 -- PreBabel without knowing FH = GUT without knowing solid state physics
If the case 1 is the case, your conclusion should be correct. If the case 2 is the case, your conclusion might not be correct. The issue hinges on the nature of FH. If the FH is the foundation for PreBabel, then it is the case 1. If the FH is not the foundation for PreBabel but is something like solid state physics to GUT, then it is the case 2.
Perhaps, many will disagree with me, but I do not think that the case 1 is the case for PreBabel. I will give my reasons below.
1. If FH does go haywire under PB-mapping, we can always give a unique PB for FH, such as,
PB (FH) = FH, that is, FH is not touched by PB.
Yet, even if FH were a singularity, I have showed mathematically that a rational mapping (such as, PreBabel) can handle FH, that singularity. Furthermore, it is very easy to prove that FH (whatever it is in language h) can never be a singularity with the "Private language thesis" which I discussed in the early posts.
If FH is a part of language h (Lh), FH can never be private (unknowable). If FH is not unknowable, then FH cannot be a singularity in Lh.
As the PreBabel is a "masking" function which should not disturb FH in any way. That is, the PB (FH) can never go haywire.
Note: about 30 years ago, there was a "Martian language issue" in physics, not in linguistics. The questions were,
i. Can we communicate with Martians when we meet them?
ii. "How" to get to know each other's languages?
iii. What will be the starting point?"
These questions were discussed in details in physics, and all questions were resolved satisfactorily. This is, in fact, a scientific proof on the "Private language thesis", and it is an expanded thesis.
a. If it is a language, it cannot be private (unknowable).
b. For any two languages (Martian or the whatnot), they can always communicate.
As long as FH is a part of a (any) language, it can always be handle by a rational mapping, such as the PB mapping.
2. The PreBabel (English + Chinese) can be the base or the seed for PreBabel (proper) although not a fullfledged one. I have never stated that PreBabel is already complete. However, I did show that the Bohr's hydrogen model can be the "base" to handle the calculation for all heavy atoms, and an ideal equation (Newton's gravitation law) can handle the calculation for any real system which is far removed from that "ideal' situation.
In fact, if a theory can handle a complex system but failed for the simplest system, it is not a theory at all but is a "particular solution" for a particular case. A theory must, must, ... must accommodate the simplest system to be a theory. If it fails for a complex or a complicate system, it is absolutely fine. The complicate system can always, always, ..., always be approached with the repeated approximations.
As long as FH is a part of a (any) language, it can always be approached by a "basic" theory which works only for the simplest language.
Thus, "by only familiar with two languages, which are, in some ways, quite similar and in no way representative of the full diversity of languages," the principles of PreBabel can, indeed, absolutely ... absolutely be covering the language universals.
[quote="Khagan"] If you make any genuine discoveries, they will be quite by accident and you certainly will have no way to separate them from the discoveries that are erroneous. [/quote]
In the history of science, many theories did arise accidentally, and none of them was devalued because of that.
For PreBabel as a theory, it has,
1. A detailed theoretically framework.
a. Large number theorem
b. The shadow theorem
c. The attractor theorem
d. Fuzzy logic
e. Super Unified Linguistic Theory
http://www.prebabel.info/bab014.htm
2. A detailed implementation procedures. a. an actual PB root word set b. the seed words encoding and ciphering with the PB root word set c. the regressive encoding -- dictionary encoding d. the progressive ciphering e. the settling in the mixing pot
3. A detailed metaphysical and ontological supports. a. The Private language thesis b. The Martian language thesis
4. Some actual PB implementations
a. PreBabel (Chinese)
http://www.prebabel.info/bab015.htm
b. PreBabel (English)
Thus, the PreBabel could be erroneous or incomplete but will not be accidental.
Signature -- PreBabel is the true universal language, it is available at