INTJs in linguistics and translating?

[Haphazard]

It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.

I guess linguistics is a science.

I'm in high school and I'm looking to become either a foreign language major or linguistics major, and either want to study or translate. I've heard that linguistics is what's making voice recognition technology, and that's something I'd look forward to going into, too.

Advice? Suggestions? Colleges?

I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?

[lancelot]

"It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.
I guess linguistics is a science."




Linguistics is a growing field, their are positions in computer science, education, research(possibly rand corp.) and law enforcement to name a few.
I got my BA. in linguistics, now I want to get a MA. and credential in ED. Psych.
I would say go for the linguistics degree, it can apply to other fields, it will help me in my Psych. work. Language is very closely related to the mind, Cognitive science, and psych. for example.

"I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?"

I am not exactly sure what you mean, but I am a professional interpreter and being intuitive (INTJ) is definately a plus. An INTJ would be drawn to a field like linguistics. Linguistics is a science, being an INTJ is always a plus in a scientific field.

PS. It would be nice to see more posts about linguistics.
Something written in pain language, not coded diagrams where you need a primer to understand it.

[Haphazard]

"It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.
I guess linguistics is a science."




Linguistics is a growing field, their are positions in computer science, education, research(possibly rand corp.) and law enforcement to name a few.
I got my BA. in linguistics, now I want to get a MA. and credential in ED. Psych.
I would say go for the linguistics degree, it can apply to other fields, it will help me in my Psych. work. Language is very closely related to the mind, Cognitive science, and psych. for example.

"I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?"

I am not exactly sure what you mean, but I am a professional interpreter and being intuitive (INTJ) is definately a plus. An INTJ would be drawn to a field like linguistics. Linguistics is a science, being an INTJ is always a plus in a scientific field.

Interpreting I always saw as more people-oriented than translating as in translating texts. How is it helpful?

Can you tell me a little about your job?

[lancelot]

Concepts and ideas can be abstract at times, an intuitive person understands the concepts then communicates them into another language.

Often word for word translation will not communicate the same ideal from one language to another.
"I hit the roof" when I saw the phone bill, will not make sense in another language; it is an idom unique to english.
Even word for word sentences will not make sense depending where you live in america, for example on the west coast we drive on a freeway and park on a drive way, on the east coast they drive on a parkway.

My job, I interpret class room lectures for deaf students, I interpret English to American sign langauge and Signned English(Sign language in English word order)

[Haphazard]

Concepts and ideas can be abstract at times, an intuitive person understands the concepts then communicates them into another language.

Often word for word translation will not communicate the same ideal from one language to another.
"I hit the roof" when I saw the phone bill, will not make sense in another language for example, it is an idom unique to english.
Even word for word sentences will not make sense depending where you live in america, for example on the west coast we drive on a freeway and park on a drive way, on the east coast they drive on a parkway.

My job, I interpret class room lectures for deaf students, I interpret English to American sign langauge and Signned English(Sign language in English word order)

I see.

I tried to teach my dog sign language once... It didn't work out, but I've heard it can be done.

I've never even heard the idiom 'hit the roof', but I can guess what it means?

How's signed English different from ASL?

[lancelot]

Sign language is used to give commands to animals on movie sets.

ASL has a word order different from english, for example Eng. I saw the dog,
ASL, The dog, I saw it.(Me dog, saw finish (finish=act completed) ) also the verbs in ASL are not conjugated, and time indicators are used instead of verb tenses.
In many ways ASL is like Chinese

I hit the roof , I blew my top= (I got upset)
A more popular way of talking now is to say "I freaked out".

[Haphazard]

Sign language is used to give commands to animals on movie sets.

ASL has a word order different from english, for example Eng. I saw the dog,
ASL, The dog, I saw it.(Me dog, saw finish (finish=act completed) ) also the verbs in ASL are not conjugated, and time indicators are used instead of verb tenses.
In many ways ASL is like Chinese

I hit the roof , I blew my top= (I got upset)
A more popular way of talking now is to say "I freaked out".

Well, I'm taking Chinese this summer. I thought it'd help me.

I didn't know they used sign language for movie animals. I guess the dogs I was trying to train were too old, and I only had a week. it was for a science project, and I was trying to teach a dog new tricks. I ended up doing chromatography instead.

[ssfanatic]

I hate foreign language class. Of course five years from now ill be laughing at how foolish i was, but im not interested in it at all. I figure that if i make enough money in the math department, i can just hire a linguistics major ;D

[ginandsour]

Not sure how taking apart and putting language back together is much different than anything math/science-y. I'll be starting Arabic soon myself.

I know what you mean by "interpereting" as feeling less INTJ. Just remember that people exist within systems, and it's natural to want aspects of any system to "make sense".

[Pinkie]

I do Linguistics, so obviously I'm somewhat biased, but I'd say go for the Linguistics. You can keep up with your foreign languages at the same time, and Linguistics helps you understand them, in the sense that it's much easier to tell how they're structured. It's rather scientific and hugely enjoyable. And, if you decide not to go down either of the routes you're looking at right now (a possibility) it gives you skills you can take to other things. I want to be an editor, personally.

Plus, it's SO MUCH FUN to be able to say to someone, 'Actually, that sentence doesn't work because you just violated the complex noun-phrase constraint' and watch as they try to work out what the hell you're on about.

[Uytuun]

I read linguistics and literature at uni (English and German)...I'm in my last year now (MA). Linguistics is absolutely very scientific...I have always been told that maths and linguistics have a lot in common. In my experience, it's a field where having high intuition is a definite plus, but only at higher levels. And like many people before me have said, there are so many different departments in linguistics, I'm sure you'll find something you like. It's also a potentially "useful" field. Language acquisition or computer stuff all have applications in the "real world". I think that would appeal to the average INTJ. Linguistics also tends to be a department with more money (exactly because it's "useful") than most other departments in the humanities.

Over here, interpreters have their own schools, at uni level, you don't really have anything that will make you a certified interpreter. I think this serves as an illustration of the difference between uni-style language and linguistics studies and interpreting, the latter is a lot more hands-on, the former is a lot more conceptual and abstract. I'm not sure INTJs make for good interpreters (if we're talking about simultaneous interpreting)...there's so much going on in our heads, so many nuances that need to be captured, so many possible viewpoints. I'm pretty bad at it. Of course, I've also never had the training.

That said, I personally prefer literature over linguistics, it's somehow less mechanical and more intuitive. I don't think literature is a typical INTJ field, but I sure like it.

[Haphazard]

Thanks everyone.

So many people have been trying to convince me that linguistics is useless and difficult, but the more I look into it the more important it actually becomes. Poor unenlightened souls.

[Zilal]

I originally wanted to go into linguistics. I love language in general, and I do think it appeals to my appreciation for systems.

[Tokey41]

Psycholinguistics is fun, and knowing IPA is a useful tool. I always found speech percpetion and production to be an interesting field of scientific study, it's definitely not useless.

[Antares]

I originally wanted to go into linguistics. I love language in general, and I do think it appeals to my appreciation for systems.

Same here. I'm always talented at 'guessing' the meaning of words, but in the end it's really educated guess. I'm curious about etymology and phonetics, but I can't say I want to be a linguist anymore. I might be interested in learning languages and/or interpreting, true, but just not languages. I find the excessive rules boring. I've considered the career of an instant interpreter... A real money-maker at that.

[lancelot]

........................Interperting what it's really like for an INTJ....
Interpreting, what it is really like, yes it is mechanical to some degree. Yes, sometimes my mind starts to dirft. Yes, as an INTJ I sometimes analyze what the speaker is saying, sometimes I theorize about what the speaker is saying(intuition comming into play). Sometimes I am bored,some subjects like basic algegra can be boring. Other courses, depending on the speaker, can be very stimulating:Astronomy,etc. My(INTJ) mind likes to put together theories, but theorizing does not come into play often as an interpreter. I enjoy the down time, while student takes a test or finishes home work. I sometimes tutor, and offer support, and sometimes I write down my ideas in my notebook.
...........I want to get out of interpreting and work as a Psychologist, but I wish I could theorize about Linguistics, cognitive science, and based on my research advance the field of both Linguistics and Cognitive science. I will have to settle for a school Psych. postion and use my intuition to help and understand students.
.............................PS................... ......................
Someone please post some theories about linguistics, I have already posted a few, Grammatically formed sentences will make sense: Chomskie's "Green eye"s, and language must have meaning. Here is a new one, I am theorizing that remote, isolated languages are highly inflected.
....No I have not done the research, the idea just occured to me..........
I am sure someone has already proven this idea, either true or false.
Any thoughts?


Ok,... I am going to get controversial: Monkies can't do sign language
.................................Dogs can't talk.............................

[tableux3]

I don't really have any great input here, just wanted to confirm that I am an INTJ and I am in love with foreign languages/cultures (as well as the sciences/math)

[lancelot]

I don't really have any great input here, just wanted to confirm that I am an INTJ and I am in love with foreign languages/cultures (as well as the sciences/math)


To really do well in a language, getting involved with the people and the curlture is a hugh Plus.

[eclecticjoker]

I took an introductory level linguistics course, and it was fascinating. I love the historical linguistics, and the idea of language as something akin to an organ or other body system. It's all very neat.

[Likethewind]

My field of study is literature&linguistics, but we have also classes in culture&history as part of the philology studies. I absolutely love what I do, and am 100% happy with my choice. But I am not INTJ. So, no great input from me either. However, if I ever met an INTJ majoring in literary theory&history of literature my life would become closer to perfection in an instant. Finally someone to have a true discussion with!

[anthrogirl]

I am doing a uni paper on social lingustics at the moment, it is very interesting, I am really enjoying it, my major is anthropology. I don't like science or maths, maybe I'm not a typical INTJ in that aspect.

[arwen]

I do linguistics (theoretical semantics and syntax). Currently I do research for my PhD. If you like theoretical work (puzzles, really), I'd go for theoretical linguistics. On the other hand, there are plenty of directions of linguistics: you can do experimental work (neuro- or psycholinguistics, acquisition studies), applied linguistics (computational or corpus linguistics), study or document endangered languages, ... Linguistics rocks! But of course I am a tiny bit biased.

[More Tea]

I majored in linguistics in undergrad. It was fun, though some of the courses were repetitive (hope your university is different). Unlike a lot of people who majored in linguistics, I jazzed it up with a lot of supplemental foreign language classes: Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Biblical Hebrew, and ancient Germanic languages. All good fun. Of course, some professors are quick to emphasis that linguistics is the science of how languages work, not the study of a language in the traditional sense, so all those subjects didn't necessarily give me any additional street cred. Personally, I just love dabbling with new languages, though.

[mxdntz]

I really enjoyed my intro linguistics class and I did well, but Phonetics scared me away. Is it possible to be a linguist without mastering Phonetics?





mxdntz added to this post, 7 minutes and 47 seconds later...


I'm in high school and I'm looking to become either a foreign language major or linguistics major, and either want to study or translate. I've heard that linguistics is what's making voice recognition technology, and that's something I'd look forward to going into, too.


I found this on the linguistics website at my school,
What is the career potential for a major in linguistics?
An undergraduate major in linguistics provides training that can be extremely helpful in a variety of careers. For example, if combined with mastery of a foreign language, a linguistics B.A. can be of great use to those planning careers in translating or in the teaching of foreign languages.
Likewise, the linguistics major at UT provides a strong foundation for those students who intend to seek a master's degree in other language-related fields, such as speech pathology, deaf education, audiology, or the teaching of English as a second language.
Finally, a linguistics major, if combined with training in computer science, can be useful to those pursuing careers in the computer industry, which is grappling with many technical problems related to natural language processing, such as automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, and machine translation.
Highly-motivated students in linguistics may choose to enter graduate programs in linguistics. In recent years, the doctoral students from our own department have been following two career paths: they have either gone on to teaching positions in universities or they have elected to pursue careers in the computer industry."To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
:thumbsup:

[Pinkie]

I really enjoyed my intro linguistics class and I did well, but Phonetics scared me away. Is it possible to be a linguist without mastering Phonetics?



Phonetics is my favourite bit! I like writing notes to my friends in phonetic script and then watching as other people who don't 'speak' phonetics try to work out what it means ^__^ Plus, writing linear rules is really good fun.

[mschristinetan]

Oh i love phonetics too. But to be a linguist, u need to be strong in all, and be highly analytical, i suppose.

[Uytuun]

I really enjoyed my intro linguistics class and I did well, but Phonetics scared me away. Is it possible to be a linguist without mastering Phonetics?

I had phonetics in the first year and I'm sure some flards remain in the back of my head and when it's used in an article, I can still figure out what they mean, but really, I hardly ever need it these days. Of course this depends on the direction you want to move into.

To be a really good linguist, you need to understand the system and be able to analyse it, but you also need good intuition. A really good linguist has loads of Fingerspitzengefühl and immediately senses when something is off, or when there are certain bizarre irregularities, notices patterns and feels semantic connotations...he has to see a lot of stuff that isn't overtly there and then has to go through corpus analyses in order to see his hypothesis confirmed. Last week in my linguistics class, I had this intuition about a word pair - like flash, there it is, quick, hang on to it -and then the teacher went on to explain a theory that was compatible with my intuition...really cool. Basically, some good old Ni-induced "clairvoyance" will get you far.

[Myrak]

I'm currently studying Japanese, have been for 5 years. Top of my year.
I really enjoy the language, very systematic, the rules actually stick to more cases than the exceptions do (bloody English) and since multiple different alphabets are utilised, my visual learning style comes in very handy.

The main reason that I seem to love it is because I envision it being very practical and useful later on. I would love to be able to import Japanese stuff (video games, for example) and be able to read and understand the text and dialogue. I mainly enjoy reading/writing, not too keen on speaking/listening but I suppose it could come in handy too.

2 years back, our class got to travel around Japan for a month. Some of the best times of my life were on that trip. Loved it.
This year however, the workload is unnecessarily heavy; averaging 2-3 assessments per week, it's getting ridiculous. Kinda glad it's almost over. Can't see myself taking it on as a career though, but I suppose it's always an option.

[lancelot]

I do linguistics (theoretical semantics and syntax). Currently I do research for my PhD. If you like theoretical work (puzzles, really), I'd go for theoretical linguistics. On the other hand, there are plenty of directions of linguistics: you can do experimental work (neuro- or psycholinguistics, acquisition studies), applied linguistics (computational or corpus linguistics), study or document endangered languages, ... Linguistics rocks! But of course I am a tiny bit biased.

Is it true isloated languages tend to be highly inflected, and languages word order and preposition dependent are derived from other languages?
I'm sorry I just pulled this out of the air. (My teacher was so crazy, I will spend the rest of my life theorizing and thinking about linguistics)
My intuition says yes, isolated languages are highly inflected and word order and prepsition dependent lagnuages are derived from a parent language.
I only have a BA in linguistics, so forgive me if I am stating the obvious.

Any thoughts?

ps. I am taking a lang. certification test in the morning.

[Daniel]

I'm all for one unified language...It would be so more efficient and rational. Grammar always seemed as a pseudoscience to me. However linguistics in a relation to cognitive science and psychology seems very interesting.

[Mogura]

It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.

I guess linguistics is a science.

I'm in high school and I'm looking to become either a foreign language major or linguistics major, and either want to study or translate. I've heard that linguistics is what's making voice recognition technology, and that's something I'd look forward to going into, too.

Advice? Suggestions? Colleges?

I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?

When it comes to majoring in a foreign language or linguistics, it is best to do it as a double major. For example:

Japanese and Education (Curriculum and Instruction) - to teach Japanese in schools

Japanese and Law - to work in legal document translation

Japanese and Communications or Film - to work in movie subtitle translation

Japanese and Journalism - to work in news media translation

Linguistics and Computer Science - to build translation/voice recognition tools

You get the idea... If you major in language or linguistics only, then your career path becomes restricted to post graduate school or jobs that typically employ liberal arts graduates.

Just some food for thought...

[lancelot]

I'm all for one unified language...It would be so more efficient and rational. Grammar always seemed as a pseudoscience to me. However linguistics in a relation to cognitive science and psychology seems very interesting.

Grammar is how languages make sense. There are many different grammars, they range from being highly inflected(infixes, prefixes, and suffixes) to being very word order, and preposition dependent. English for example is a very word order and preposition dependent language. Latin is a highly inflected language. It is time for luch.

[lancelot]

When it comes to majoring in a foreign language or linguistics, it is best to do it as a double major. For example:

Japanese and Education (Curriculum and Instruction) - to teach Japanese in schools

Japanese and Law - to work in legal document translation

Japanese and Communications or Film - to work in movie subtitle translation

Japanese and Journalism - to work in news media translation

Linguistics and Computer Science - to build translation/voice recognition tools

You get the idea... If you major in language or linguistics only, then your career path becomes restricted to post graduate school or jobs that typically employ liberal arts graduates.

Just some food for thought...

It's funny how people over look the connection between linguistics and artificial intelligence.


Without Linguistics, there is no artificial intelligence.

By artificial intelligence, I mean something like the HAL 9000, not the Mars Rover. The laser eyes of the Rover, and computer chips allow the Rover to interact with its environment, but it can't crack a joke about seeing Martians, or tease the flight controllers about seeing a UFO.

What I am saying is, the type of thinking necessary for humor and the creation of new discourse is tied to linguistics.

The interfacing with the computer code logic, and the Rover's interpretation of it's environment, and new data, could be made to follow the syntax rules for a human language; I believe this is a closer step towards real Artificial Intelligence and thinking like a human.

[malefide]

I'm a linguistics major. Linguistics is probably my favorite thing in the world (as of yet). Before university it had been my hobby since I was thirteen. It's my one main passion in life. Right now I'm studying morphology, and it's like three hours a week of puzzles and fun to me.

I just love the analysis and linguistic theory in general. I can't explain precisely why I love it, but it's always been stimulating and interesting to me. Phonetics is probably my favorite, but I'm interested in all areas of linguistics.

[lancelot]

I'm a linguistics major. Linguistics is probably my favorite thing in the world (as of yet). Before university it had been my hobby since I was thirteen. It's my one main passion in life. Right now I'm studying morphology, and it's like three hours a week of puzzles and fun to me.

I just love the analysis and linguistic theory in general. I can't explain precisely why I love it, but it's always been stimulating and interesting to me. Phonetics is probably my favorite, but I'm interested in all areas of linguistics.

I studied phonetics and phonology, I found phonology to be much more difficult. Phonology was more abstract and theoritical, my teacher was good but impossible: everything we did was analysis, stating a theory then proving it. I came out of the program theorizing about linguistics, and coming up with strange and unusual stuff.

[Erika Redmark]

I'm a linguistics major, too–so far my favourite area is pragmatics, and I also like syntax and semantics. I don't find phonology quite as interesting. I always thought I'd like historical linguistics the best (since the study and reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European has always fascinated me), but now that I study it in school, pragmatics is emerging as what looks like it's going to be a clear winner in terms of my interests.

Besides theoretical study, the other thing I like is seeing how much I can figure out from a text in a language I don't know–like I'll look at something from the Kalevala and think, "well, here's a suffix I know, here's a name, these two words are in the essive (or whatever) case, this is what the vowel harmony is doing" to try to figure out what some specific Finnish lexical items are, even though I don't know any Finnish. Fun times!

[Pinkie]

I adore phonology. It just fascinates me completely. I liked semantics and pragmatics (I liked drawing the logical trees for reductio proofs...), and historical linguistics is interesting, but I still love phonology the most. Cross-linguistic syntax is really good too, though - it sounds like the sort of thing you're doing for Finnish, Erika! We did some Nahuatl and Mohawk earlier and it was so cool ^___^

[Doppelbock]

It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.

I guess linguistics is a science.

I'm in high school and I'm looking to become either a foreign language major or linguistics major, and either want to study or translate. I've heard that linguistics is what's making voice recognition technology, and that's something I'd look forward to going into, too.

Advice? Suggestions? Colleges?

I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?

I would think that getting into linguistics as a science would be very fascinating and rewarding for an INTJ. But just becoming a translator would be way too routine and mundane for an INTJ. I'd suggest going the researchy-sciency route and not just learning languages to become a translator. There is a big need for automated speech translation, speech recognition, etc., lots of fun areas to play in.

[lancelot]

It's so strange the way linguistics makes us think so much, after I got my degree, I continued to think about lingusitcs and put together theories.
My theories are not anything profound, just the result of a person who was trained to think.

For example regarding Chomsk's "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" I don't believe it's possible to construct sentences in english that don't make some kind of sense: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
(Jealousy is difficult to supress).

The idea hit me that languages that are isloated are highly inflected, and other languages word order and preposition dependent are derived from other languages(From Latin is derived Spanish, French, Italian). My examples are just basic examples, and I have not researched them, I just pulled them out of the air. Forgive me if I am stating something obvious, but it is a place to start.

I would appreciate it if someone else could post a therory in linguistics and we all could respond to it, so far I have posted two. The above two theories are awaiting a response.

Ok all you linguists, you know who you are, I am calling you out!

[marcclarke]

It seems that everyone here has some interest in something more mathy or sciencey.

I guess linguistics is a science.

I'm in high school and I'm looking to become either a foreign language major or linguistics major, and either want to study or translate. I've heard that linguistics is what's making voice recognition technology, and that's something I'd look forward to going into, too.

Advice? Suggestions? Colleges?

I don't know. Interpretation seems kind of counter-intuitive for an INTJ, doesn't it?

Hardly. I used to work as a synchronous interpreter. Please say more about why you think/feel/believe that interpreting would be counter-intuitive for an INTJ?

[malefide]

Besides theoretical study, the other thing I like is seeing how much I can figure out from a text in a language I don't know–like I'll look at something from the Kalevala and think, "well, here's a suffix I know, here's a name, these two words are in the essive (or whatever) case, this is what the vowel harmony is doing" to try to figure out what some specific Finnish lexical items are, even though I don't know any Finnish. Fun times!

I love doing that! I'm often surprised at how much I can actually read. Right now I'm in a morphology class and everyday we analyze morphemes and attempt to account for morphophonemic changes, etc. and this reminds me a bit of your analysis description. It's just like a puzzle to be solved for me. I absolutely adore it. (Vowel harmony is fun to write rules for, by the way.)

Now I'm all excited.

[Erika Redmark]

I'd never thought of the "colourless green ideas" sentence as a metaphor before, but I guess it works. The losing inflections thing, though, I don't agree with since that would mean that historical change is teleologically motivated…standalone words can become morphemes over time, and a language can go from not being ergative to being ergative, gaining a case distinction.

I think it would be fun to be an interpreter, actually, since even without studying the theory, knowing a lot of languages would be pretty awesome.

<3 vowel harmony.

[errrzarrr]

I wish I could express better verbally and, why not, writing too. Anyway, seems like a INTJ's common fact.

[malefide]

I'd never thought of the "colourless green ideas" sentence as a metaphor before, but I guess it works. The losing inflections thing, though, I don't agree with since that would mean that historical change is teleologically motivated…standalone words can become morphemes over time, and a language can go from not being ergative to being ergative, gaining a case distinction.

I think it would be fun to be an interpreter, actually, since even without studying the theory, knowing a lot of languages would be pretty awesome.

<3 vowel harmony.

I think the colourless green ideas sentence is just showing how one can have a grammatical sentence that has no semantic value. It doesn't mean anything, because the words have contradicting semantic values, but syntactically and otherwise the sentence is fine. It's just the difference between semantic and formally grammatical soundness.

[lancelot]

I think the colourless green ideas sentence is just showing how one can have a grammatical sentence that has no semantic value. It doesn't mean anything, because the words have contradicting semantic values, but syntactically and otherwise the sentence is fine. It's just the difference between semantic and formally grammatical soundness.

I am sorry for not making myself clear. I am arguing it is Impossible to grammatically construct a sentence in english that does not have meaning.

Also contradicting semantic values add a deeper meaning to words.
Ex. Bitter sweet, Lonely popular, etc.

When put in context it becomes clear, especially with people who love to play with words.

Ex. Jessica is so jealous of Robert's new girl friend, she thinks about her all the time. It seems "colorless green ideas sleep furiously." (Jealousy is difficult to supress). Intelligent, creative people play with language, it is not unusual for people to say something in a strange or poetic manner.

Regarding Chomsky's "Green eyes sleep furiously" Please consider the following example below.

The anonymous man whose name is written in the lamb's book of life, the naked man who was clothed in white raiment, who will live for eternity, was killed by a lion in the collisium.

Do you get the idea? To say this sentence makes no sense, or is contradictory, would be incorrect! It makes perfect sense to someone with the appropriate back ground knowledge:The roman persecution of Christians, and the adjectives used in the New Testament to describe righteousness.

When Syntax/Morphological Rules of a particular language are followed, it is impossible to say something that does not have direct/potential meaning or make direct or potential sense.(It is the rules of the language, the ruled governed characteristics of language that force the phrase, sentence, statement, to make sense).


Ps. Once upon a time, it would have been foolish to say " I know the man who walked on the moon."

[Erika Redmark]

Yeah. Compositional semantics predicts that these sentences will always be false, which (I think) prompts one to interpret them as metaphors (maxim of quality?).

[lancelot]

Yeah. Compositional semantics predicts that these sentences will always be false, which (I think) prompts one to interpret them as metaphors (maxim of quality?).

I am only arguing they have meaning, metaphoric or otherwise!
Whether they are true or false depends on your point of view!
Obviously one could make the statement, Love is not really a rose; Yet this does not mean comparing love to a rose is a false statement, or that love and roses do not share some charateristics.

As for languages loosing inflection that's obvious. Old english verses modern english. Borrowed from The Story of English.

Please consider the same sentence(The King meets the Bishop)in both old and modern english.

'se cyning meteth thone biscop" (highly inflected)
At the time english was highly inflected it was, more or less,
an islotated language.

After english was impacted by the Vikings and the French it became word order and preposition dependent. See below

"The king meets the bishop."(word order dependent) I don't think people would argue this idea.

The controversial part of my argument is that isolated languages in general are highly inflected.

[Erika Redmark]

Sure, contact can motivate losing inflection. There was that example from The Story of English where Old English has þæt hors versus þa hors for singular and plural, and Old Norse has something like hros versus hrossit (something like that, I haven't read the book or seen the videos in ages), and communication between speakers of each was a factor in change of that kind. But I will argue with the assumption that the directionality of changes in inflection only goes one way (that the morphological complexity of a system is always decreasing and more complex systems are just deteriorating more slowly, due to conservatism or isolation or whatever). Sometimes a grammatical case can develop from a preposition or postposition (I've heard that this is where the cases in Finnish come from, and I'd believe it, too, since it mostly consists of tacking an ending onto something…). You'd also have to assume that if languages always decrease in inflection, the first language(s) ever must have been more morphologically complex than any attested language…common sense would suggest that this is not the case. (Also, creolisation.)

[lancelot]

Sure, contact can motivate losing inflection. There was that example from The Story of English where Old English has þæt hors versus þa hors for singular and plural, and Old Norse has something like hros versus hrossit (something like that, I haven't read the book or seen the videos in ages), and communication between speakers of each was a factor in change of that kind. But I will argue with the assumption that the directionality of changes in inflection only goes one way (that the morphological complexity of a system is always decreasing and more complex systems are just deteriorating more slowly, due to conservatism or isolation or whatever). Sometimes a grammatical case can develop from a preposition or postposition (I've heard that this is where the cases in Finnish come from, and I'd believe it, too, since it mostly consists of tacking an ending onto something…). You'd also have to assume that if languages always decrease in inflection, the first language(s) ever must have been more morphologically complex than any attested language…common sense would suggest that this is not the case. (Also, creolisation.)

Not all languages are directly impacted by other languages. Therefore the morphological complexity of various lang. systems may not always be decreasing.
Also language is very cultural, therefore people resist their language morphology, and syntax being impacted by other languages and thereby loosing inflection.

Why would "The first languages" not be highly inflected or more morphologically complex? Yeah, I would think the proto languages would have been extreamly inflected: Perhaps one sentence was a hugh word full of inflection. One highly inflected word could be the same as a long sentence right? Anything that can be expressed using a sentence could also be expressed through a single word using inflection; I would think this is how all langages started out.
Perhaps we really are loosing inflection, One speech community interacting with another, so many miles away, would cause these speech communities to become more word order dependent for the sake of being mutually intelligible.
And why would they not have evolved to some degree like all the others which still mantain some inflection?
Also complex systems of morphology(high inflection) are not decreasing by isolation, I am saying some have decreased by being impacted by other languages, the opposite of isolation.

Ps. You are incredibly articulate and intelligent.
Thanks for not using too much linguistic terminology, I have forgotten most of it. I graduated college in 1997

I have to get ready for bed, if anyone makes more posts I would love to see them at work tomorrow.


Hardly. I used to work as a synchronous interpreter. Please say more about why you think/feel/believe that interpreting would be counter-intuitive for an INTJ?

I am also working as an interpreter, I don't think it's counter intuitive at all; Some words, phrases, and ideas are abstract and intuition comes into play.
I think someone who is intuitive is a better interpreter. An example in english would be the word "where". "Where" does not always mean where?(question), and often in some english phrases, it would translate to the word "there" in other languages. An intuitive person knows when we here the phrase "The beach is a place 'where' you can get a tan" (Where) is referring to a location; this is why where(the question) is replaced with the word there(location) when interpreting. The above example is basic, the same idea can be applied to more complex phrases; when one understands the concept, meaning of what is said(intuition), the interpreter communicates this idea into the target langage.





lancelot added to this post, 234 minutes and 40 seconds later...

Does any one have any thoughts on why Sir William jones's theory regarding Proto-Indo-Eurpean languages may be false?

Come on!, All theories are welcome!

Ps. Please don't use too much linguistic mumbo jumbo, if you understand the idea, you can state it using regular language.

I am sorry, I need a job where they pay me to theorize!

[Radamisto]

Never really studied linguistics, but I speak fluently 2 foreign languages apart from my own and in my job I need to use all 3 of them constantly. It is very entertaining, mentally stimulating and often quite challenging, particularly when specialist vocabulary needs to be used. I have my fair share of translations to be made and often need to practice my language skills on the phone as well. I really enjoy it all, as it rarely gets boring. Currently I am working on bringing my fourth language back to the fluent level. I have a lot of collegues at work who speak it, so then I will be quattrolingual every day!

[lancelot]

Never really studied linguistics, but I speak fluently 2 foreign languages apart from my own and in my job I need to use all 3 of them constantly. It is very entertaining, mentally stimulating and often quite challenging, particularly when specialist vocabulary needs to be used. I have my fair share of translations to be made and often need to practice my language skills on the phone as well. I really enjoy it all, as it rarely gets boring. Currently I am working on bringing my fourth language back to the fluent level. I have a lot of collegues at work who speak it, so then I will be quattrolingual every day!

Just curious what are the languages you speak? What do you do for work?

[ninestar]

I love language, but ironically I can't stand linguistics. I'm not sure why. Semantics seems interesting, but phonetics really put me off... maybe it was the lecturer... he sent me to sleep a lot.