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From: Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: The Foundation of Linguistic truth is stipulated relations between finite strings
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2024 17:45:40 +0300
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On 2024-09-17 13:01:37 +0000, olcott said:

> On 9/17/2024 1:41 AM, Mikko wrote:
>> On 2024-09-16 11:57:11 +0000, olcott said:
>> 
>>> On 9/16/2024 2:54 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>> On 2024-09-15 17:09:34 +0000, olcott said:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 9/15/2024 3:32 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>>>> On 2024-09-14 14:01:31 +0000, olcott said:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 9/14/2024 3:26 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2024-09-13 14:38:02 +0000, olcott said:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2024 6:52 AM, Mikko wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 2024-09-04 03:41:58 +0000, olcott said:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The Foundation of Linguistic truth is stipulated relations
>>>>>>>>>>> between finite strings.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> The only way that we know that "cats" <are> "animals"
>>>>>>>>>>> (in English) is the this is stipulated to be true.
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> *This is related to*
>>>>>>>>>>> Truth-conditional semantics is an approach to semantics of
>>>>>>>>>>> natural language that sees meaning (or at least the meaning
>>>>>>>>>>> of assertions) as being the same as, or reducible to, their
>>>>>>>>>>> truth conditions. This approach to semantics is principally
>>>>>>>>>>> associated with Donald Davidson, and attempts to carry out
>>>>>>>>>>> for the semantics of natural language what Tarski's semantic
>>>>>>>>>>> theory of truth achieves for the semantics of logic.
>>>>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth-conditional_semantics
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> *Yet equally applies to formal languages*
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> No, it does not. Formal languages are designed for many different
>>>>>>>>>> purposes. Whether they have any semantics and the nature of the
>>>>>>>>>> semantics of those that have is determined by the purpose of the
>>>>>>>>>> language.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Formal languages are essentially nothing more than
>>>>>>>>> relations between finite strings.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Basically a formal language is just a set of strings, usually defined
>>>>>>>> so that it is easy to determine about each string whether it belongs
>>>>>>>> to that subset. Relations of strings to other strings or anything else
>>>>>>>> are defined when useful for the purpose of the language.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Yes.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Thus, given T, an elementary theorem is an elementary
>>>>>>>>> statement which is true.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> That requires more than just a language. Being an elementary theorem means
>>>>>>>> that a subset of the language is defined as a set of the elementary theorems
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> a subset of the finite strings are stipulated to be elementary theorems.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> or postulates, usually so that it easy to determine whether a string is a
>>>>>>>> member of that set, often simply as a list of all elementary theorems.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Yes.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> https://www.liarparadox.org/Haskell_Curry_45.pdf
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Some of these relations between finite strings are
>>>>>>>>> elementary theorems thus are stipulated to be true.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> No, that conficts with the meanings of those words. Certain realtions
>>>>>>>> between strings are designated as inference rules, usually defined so
>>>>>>>> that it is easy to determine whether a given string can be inferred
>>>>>>>> from given (usually one or two) other strings. Elementary theorems
>>>>>>>> are strings, not relations between strings.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> One elementary theorem of English is the {Cats} <are> {Animals}.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> There are no elementary theorems of English
>>>>> 
>>>>> There are billions of elementary theorems in English of
>>>>> this form: finite_string_X <is a> finite_string_Y
>>>>> I am stopping here at your first huge mistake.
>>>> 
>>>> They are not elementary theorems of English. They are English expressions
>>>> of claims that that are not language specific.
>>>> 
>>>>> It is hard to step back and see that "cats" and "animals"
>>>>> never had any inherent meaning.
>>>> 
>>>> Those meanings are older that the words "cat" and "animal" and the
>>>> word "animal" existed before there was any English language.
>>> 
>>> Yet they did not exist back when language was the exact
>>> same caveman grunt.
>> 
>> Nothing is known about languages before 16 000 BC and very little
>> about languages before 4000 BC.
>> 
>> Words change ofer time so a word does not have well defined beginning.
>> If you regard "cat" as a different word from "catt" 'male cat' and
>> "catte" 'female cat' then it is a fairly new word, if the same then
>> it is older than the English language.
>> 
>>> There was point point in time when words came into
>>> existence.
>> 
>> That is not the same time for all words and also depends on what you
>> consider a new word and what just a variant of an existing one. Even
>> now people use sonds that are not considered words and sounds that
>> can be regardeded, depending on one's opinion, words or non-words.
> 
> None-the-less if no one ever told you what a "cat" is
> it would remains the same in your mind as "vnjrvlgjtyj"
> meaningless gibberish.

It is not necessary to be told. I have learned many words simply
observing how other peoöle use them. Of course foreign langugage
words are often learned from dictionaries and textbooks that give
translations of the words. You cannot learn words from dfinitions
or being told unless you already know enogh words with menaings
to understand those dfinitions and other explanations.

-- 
Mikko