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Some comments on the article S. Harnad (1996): The origin of words: A
psychophyisical hypothesis
1. In article 1996 the Author hypothesizes that
> "words originated as the names of perceptual categories and that two
> forms of representation underlying perceptual categorization - iconic
> and categorical representations - served to ground a third, symbolic
> form of representation".
My question is about the nature of these representational levels. What
is the meaning of "served to ground" or "to ground something"? In the
light of connectionist alternatives I suggest to handle the upper
levels (the categorical and the symbolical ones) as emergent structures
from the lower levels. Whenever we don't accept this point of view we
could be forced to suspect that these levels of representation are of
different nature, but this claim teaches the neurobiologists a lecture.
As I know neurobiology research results support the emergent structure
view. And, by this, the connectionist theories.
What are in fact the neurobiological grounds of Harnad's hypotheseis
that could explain the qualitative differences between the
representational levels?
2. If we accept the connectionist view, an interesting question can be
raised: why don't these emergent structures (or at least the symbolical
one) develop in animals? Is there a special mental organ which enables
the emergence of symbolical representations?
3. I see as a reading of the Whorf-hypothesis that the language (of
thought - in the Fodor 1983 sense) = the categorizational possibilities
influence thought. This could be true especially considering that
categorization (the recognization/extraction of invariant features) is
perhaps not an obvious procedure that can be modelized by some learning
algorithms. I suspect that in a considerable part of our categorization
tasks sets of invariant features other than in reality may serve to
ground of forming categories (possibly in some cases of musical
performance perception, in recognization of handwriting etc. for
instance). According to a Whorfian-like view, categorization schemas
are primary and innate. It reminds me also an extreme Fodor view, sort
of Platonian idealism, according to which all concepts we humans CAN
have are innate and in the head, and the role of perception is
constrained only to recognization of the of the categories from the
physical stimuli. This hypothesis is contrary to Harnad's view of
categorization and symbolization.
4. I think we are lack of the arguments that prove the truth of
intertranslatability criterion (for the existence of such a criterion
between languages).
5. Why can't the "language" of music for instance - to which
psychoanalists attribute such an immense symbolical force of expression
- give us a world description similar to that of the language? Can a
musical system intertranslatable/equivalent to natural language be the
tool of understanding?
I doubt. This suggests that innate mechanisms focus on the speech, we
are predisposed since early infancy to pay attention to the speech
rather than musics, melodies so often heard, for instance.
Regarding the "choosen" nature of speech we can easily suppose that there
are several other aspects choosen, too (related to the understanding of
speech for example). And why is it just the speech concerned?
There certainly are innate elements in language. How is a baby able to
choose the relavant structures such precisely among a few facts/data
(heard, perceived etc.)? Categorization cues must be genetically
transmissible.
What's more, with our "present" mind it is
difficult to give a plausible explanation (as those only seem plausible
for ourselves) for the reason of the categorization serving ground to
language use. So that our ancestors learn what to categorize, there was
also a "pre-categorization" (a categorization beforehand) needed.
Categorization is not at all such an obvious category.
Stachó László
(JATE Szeged, általános nyelvészet szak/theoretical linguistics, 4th year;
Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem (Franz Liszt Academy of Music) Budapest,
zenetudomány szak/musicology, 2nd year;
Szegedi Társadalomtudományi Szakkollégium (Szeged University College for
Students in Social Sciences) Szeged, 1st year)
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