A Science Of Human Language - Part #10

In this part of the series, commenced here, I give some concrete examples from various languages of how words can cue the category from which other words were, or are to be selected.

"Can the Saussurean definition of grammar as a structured system of SIGNs be reinterpreted as a structured system of code + information?"

Huang, Chen and Gau¹, Institute of Linguistics,
Academia Sinica.

New Global Best-Seller

"The Terrorist Hunters" is a new book by Andy Hayman, C.B.E., Q.P.M., former Assistant Commisioner of Scotland Yard, and one-time head of the Yard's head of Special
Operations.  It is set to become a global best-seller.

Following a precedent set by a previous inept British government in the matter of "Spycatcher", the British Attorney General, a direct political appointee of Gordon Brown, the soon-to-be-outgoing British Prime Minister,  has obtained an order banning sales of the book in the UK.

Error Handling And Error Codes


This article is a brief explanation of how errors can be handled in computer code.  The basic idea is that if an error arises then it should be obvious, and easily corrected.

The concept of error-handling and correction is relevant to the suggestion in my series,  A Science Of Human Language,  that what we see as the grammar of a language is simply an error-handling component of language.  I suggest that the function of the grammatical aspects of language is this: if an error arises then it is made consciously or subconsciously obvious, and is easily corrected.


The ASCII code

The Meaning Of Tolerance


Tolerance, the ability to 'live with' or 'put up with' something has wide-ranging applications in engineering, and is strongly parallel to the notion of error bars¹ in science.

I use the terms 'tolerance' and 'addition of tolerances' in my series A Science Of Human Language  to describe minor variations in speech and writing which have no significant effect on the transmission of meaning, but which explain the drifts of word pronunciation and meaning which occur across generations of language users.