Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay *
^ দেবপ্রসাদ বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়
ABSTRACT
Speaking/Hearing Subject(S/HS) is desiring to be a machine:
Machine=
f (S/HS)
Non-algorithmic zones of
Speaking/Hearing Subject with n-nary options are annihilated. Meaning is
solidified, condensed. Corpse of corpus is clerically explored. Binary machine
does not understand what “understanding” is. Do we not consider Russell’s
paradox or Godel’s theorem here or are making fun with non-biodegradable and
disposable ostentatious talking toys?
The
status of COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS is
questioned here from four perspectives: from the standpoints of (a) Philosophy
of science, (b) Natural Science (mismatch between human Cognitive domain and
machine algorithms) (c) Social Science (Plurilingual Planning), (d)
Algocentricism (in contrast with post-formal subjective and substantive task of
Linguistics). These problems are summarized as follows:
A. PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE PROBLEM
THERE IS NOTHING CALLED “PEN-PAPER-CARD
LINGUISTICS”
IF COMPUTER MANIPULATES LINGUISTIC DATA
THROUGH THE “PEN-PAPER-CARD” METHOD
IS IT JUSTIFIED TO LABEL IT AS A SEPARATE
DISCIPLINE?
WHAT IS THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL STATUS OF CORPUS
LINGUISTICS???
B. NATURAL SCIENCE PROBLEM
MATCHING CONDITION BETWEEN “HUMAN COGNITIVE
DOMAIN”
&
“MACHINE ALGORITHM”
[Identity in Difference between computer and
human being]
[a] RUSSELL’S PARADOX
GODEL’S/ CHURCH’S THEOREM
[b] PROBLEM RAISED BY PENROSE (1990,1994)
&
SEARLE’S CHINESE ROOM PUZZLE
[C] COMPUTER’S HALTING PROBLEM
[d] FUZZINESS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE
[e] POST- FORMAL APPROACH THAT DENIES
ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES PROPOSED BY STRUCTURALISTS
C. PROBLEM OF ALGOCENTRICISM
Metamathematical algorithmic
procedural rules ignore the non-algorithmic constitutive rules (?) of human
cognition.
D. SOCIAL SCIENCE PROBLEM
PLURILINGUAL LANGUAGE PLANNING
ELECTRONIC CAPITALIST INTERVENTION IN
LANGUAGES
THE EMPIRE OF HYPER-REAL, Simulation……..
NEOLOGISMS: Algocentric Discourse, Electronic Capitalism
TWO INSTANCES OF
NON-COMPUTABILITY
(1) FUZZY NUMERALS
One thing is certain that meaning is
uncertain. What a paradox! Aporia! Invented numerals are fuzzy—indeterminacy
prevails. An ostentatious toy was made—a fuzzy game. (S)talker tried to
depict some non-deterministic and uncertain phenomena revealed in the
expressions of numerals by Bangla speakers. The points of arguments are as
follows:
1. Human quantification is partly or fully different from analyst’s
rigorous quantification.
2. The following corpus
from Bangla has a peculiar nature of non-componentiality or they are rather
prototypical.
This prototypical nature of fuzzy numerals
cannot be handled in computational framework or even in the Logical Form.
The first set of data deals with idiomatic expressions like:
1. Sat-paMc Seven-five “pros and cons”;
2. nOy-chOy nine-six “topsy-turvy”;
3. unis-biS, nineteen-twenty “trifle
difference” jaHa bahanno taHay tippanno.
5. jaHa baHanno, taHai tippanno “Whatever is
fifty-two, that is fifty-three” (i.e. 52=53) “A trifle difference does not
count.”
The second problem may be termed as “one is
not equal to one” problem. A rule of “one deletion” was proposed by Probal
Dasgupta (1987).
5 dokanduTo shop-two-classifier.
6.dokanTa shop-singular-classifier.
Obviously, “one” is deleted in 6. However,
Dasgupta mentioned that ‘one deletion’ is not true in the cases like
7. jOlTa, Water-classifier or
8. telTa oil-classifier. In Bangla, one cannot
say
9. *EkTa jOl ‘One-classifier Oil”
However, there are some pragmatic cases where
such expressions like 9 is possible. The Speaking subject’s perception
may still be “one” in those cases– it is ‘one’ as a mass body. Of course, this
is not a deterministic physical ‘one’, but one as a whole. When any Bangla
speaker says,
10. phrij theke jOlTa ano. fridge from water
classifier
bring “Bring water from the fridge.”,
his/her intention is to refer “one bottle of
water”. Therefore, ‘one” is there in the D-structure, but it is a fuzzy one.
The concept of this fuzzy “one” may be further illustrated in the
following movement- transformations, where deterministic numeral expressions
are changed to non-deterministic Determiner Phrases:
11.a) paMcTa five-classifier (definite)
11.b) goTa paMcek classifier( indef. )
five-one “more or less five “
12.a) paMcjon five-classifier (definite)
12.b) jona paMcek classifier( indef. )
five-one “more or less five “
13.a) paMckhana five-classifier
13.b) khan paMcek ,classifier( indef. )
five-one “more or less five “
14.a) paMc Hajar “five thousand”
14.b) Hajar paMcek thousand five-one. “more or
less five thousand”
15.a) paMc lakh, five lacs
15.b) lakh paMcek lacs five-one “more or less
five lacs”
Examples like 11-15 show those deterministic
expressions in (a) and non-deterministic expressions in (b). Compared to (a),
examples in (b) show the fronting of classifiers with subsequent morphophonemic
change and an addition of /ek/ “one” to the specific numeral x. This one is not
deterministic +-1, but this “one” has a range more or less than +- 1.
These Bangla numeral expressions show the
world-views of the community concerned with a special reference to their
psychophysical way of looking at things (perception) and ways of making order
of things (understanding). Therefore, it is a hermeneutic problem that involves
the relative gap between human perception and understanding in relation to their
habitat. The range of +-1 is different in different persons belonging to
different socio-economic classes or even it may be different in a single person
in different psychosocial context. A game had been developed by his engineering
students
(2)
PERCEPTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL TIME
Perceptual time is supplemented by grammatical
tense. Do we need to deploy tensor calculus here? That is ridiculous. Let us
watch the watch in the time of eco-enemy technocratic society guided by
technical rationality.
There are different types of time, (a)
technological time as it is followed by watching the watch by selecting a norm
(GMT); (b) grammatical time as it is revealed in the textbooks of Grammar; (c)
perceptual time as it is perceived by the speaking subjects of a given speech
community; (d) Scientific time as it is calculated by the locus of the
perceived by deploying Tensor Calculus. The author showed that the
prescriptions of grammatical time do not match with the perceptual time of
different communities. The author argued that the tenses and aspects as
categorized in the Bangla prescriptive grammars ignore the perceptions of the
construct “time” by the speakers of the imagined community “Bangla” as the
conjugational paradigm in the Bangla grammar book is the mimicry of English
prescriptive grammatical paradigms, e.g.,
1.
ami tomar baRi kal jacchi
I your house tomorrow go present continuous
“ I am going to your house tomorrow”
2.
ami tomake kal rastay dekhechi.
I you dative yesterday road locative see
present perfect
“I have seen you on the road yesterday.”
In the case of 1, all the Bengali-speaking
informants perceived /jacchi/ as future tense (I will go..) and in the case of
2, /dekhechi/ is perceived as past tense (I saw) instead of prescribed “present
perfect” (which is traditionally used to denote “immediate past), though
prescriptive grammar categorically put an imperative for not using “present
perfect” in the sense of past (cf. Chattopadhyay, 1939: 322). It is matter of
wonder that there is no linguistic work so far on the perceptual time in
Bangla.
This paper also concentrated on the semiotics
of time in Cinema or particularly on the concept of time in the hyper-real,
real (as it is symbolized) and in the ir-real. The author compared the
difference between “reel” time and “real” time at the moment of perceiving
hyper-real. As the author has dealt with the subjective perceptions of time in
different locus and contexts by different individuals of different imagined
communities, it is concluded that there is no generalized objective parameters
for the historical a priori, “time”.
ANOTHER
SIDE OF THIS NARRATIVE
Algorithms are used to simulate intonation: MUSICKING AND
SPEAKING: DIFFERaNCE (SEGMENTING THE SUPRASEGMENTALS)
Download (.pdf)
APPENDIX
In the beginning of my
career, I dare to ask Chomsky all about this man-machine equation; about
impossibility of Artificial Intelligence; about his algocentric discourse that
follows machine algorithm(especially the use of the term ‘computation’); about his
model-theoretic approaches….
His answers are as
follows:
For detailed discussion, kindly follow hyperlinks (blue-colored
titles)
·
2006. “Linguistic
Cybercolonization”. Globalization, Language, Culture and media.
Eds. B.N.Patnaik, S.I.Hasnain, Simla Institute of Advanced Studies.(pp.146-187)
ISBN81-7986-061-2
Download (.pdf)
·
2004. “কম্পিউটার কি কথা বলবে? [Can
Computer Speak?]”Prasanta Chattopadhyay ed. Kalodhvoni.
XII:2-3 (pp.28-36)
Download (.pdf)
·
2003. “Computational Linguistics: A
dissenter’s Voice.” Indian Journal of Linguistics. XXI: 1 (pp. 1-18) RN 34809/74. http://linguistlist.org/pubs/papers/browse-papers-action.cfm?PaperID=7581.
Download (.pdf)
·
2001. “পাড়া থেকে বিশ্ব বা বিশ্ব থেকে পাড়া : সাইবার
কলোনির অভ্যুত্থান.”
biSSaYon, gOnotOntro o tritio biSSo.(Proceedings of the Seminar on
“Globalization”). Vol.II. Indian Academy of Social Science. Jadavpur
University. (pp.3-8)
Download (.pdf)
·
2003. “নানান
সময়: চলচ্চিত্রেরও…” [Language, Time and
Cinema] Silhouette. Vol. III.
(pp.112-25).
Download (.pdf)
·
2000. “Cybermultilingualism.” Indian Journal
of Applied Linguistics. XXVI:2 (pp.
117-130). Delhi. ISSN 0379-0037.
Download (.pdf)
·
2000. “শেষ মহাআখ্যান [Last Meta-Narrative]. proticcer SaHittotOtto.
Kolkata :Alochona Chakra (pp.91-151).
Download (.pdf)
·
1999. “Bangla Numerals and Problems of
Computability”. 2nd.
International Conference on South Asian Languages, Punjabi University, Patiala.
8-10 January, 1999.http://linguistlist.org/pubs/papers/browse-papers-action.cfm?PaperID=7802
·
1999. “Localization in Globalization”
Frontier. Vol.31. No.40.May 2-8, 1999 (pp.12-15) RN 16516/68.
Download (.pdf)
·
1997. “Scholars Differ : D.B. & T.M.M.
On Probal Dasgupta & L. Khuchandani”. DLA News.
21:11 November ’97 (pg.3) RN KL/Tv(n)/116 ( A Discussion On the Review of Khubchandani’s 1997. Revisualizing
Boundaries; Introduction: Probal Dasgupta)
·
1997. “On Computational and Chomskyan
Linguistic Theory”.
Bahri, U.S. ed. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol .XXIII, No.2
(pp.29-42). Jul-Dec’97 Delhi. ISSN
0379-0037.
Download (.pdf)
See also: CAN COMPUTER SPEAK? Collection http://www.scribd.com/collections/3354649/CAN-COMPUTER-SPEAK
DigiArt: Akhar Bandyopadhyay
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