Non-discrete effects in language, or the Critique of Pure Reason

Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics RAN and Lomonosov Moscow

State University) aakibrik@gmail.com

of discrete elements (phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences)
But this view does

not survive an encounter with reality

clitics
iz mašiny ‘from the car’
iz ... mašiny ‘from ... the

car’
iz taksi [is taksi] ‘from the taxi’
Clauses: parcellation
I’ll come, in a minute
These are primarily syntagmatic examples: non-discrete boundaries between linearly arranged units

between classes, types, or categories in an inventory
Questionable phonemes
Russian жюри žjuri

‘jury’
[ž’ur’i]
even though supposedly there is no palatalized [ž’] in Russian (in this position)
Questionable words and clauses
I want [to go]
particle infinitival clause
I wan[na go] ??

cf. жури žuri ‘rebuke’

sounds’
‘X meant smth’
‘X expressed his belief in smth’
‘X wanted Y

to know smth’
‘X wanted Y to perform smth’
.................
Some of these meanings are shared by X told smth, but some are not

with a knife’, lit. ‘wrote with a knife’
One of the

Indo-European etymologies of the root pis- is ‘create image by cutting’
Apparently the ancient meaning of the root, several millennia old, is still present in a marginal usage of the modern verb

the 16th – 17th century
Vladimir N. Toporov
In the existing texts

Prussian syntax is almost fully copied from German (Luther’s Catechism)
In the 18th century, when Prussian was extinct, German-speaking peasants of the area used many Prussian words

effects permeate every single aspect of language
This problem is in

the core of theoretical debates about language

often a mere statement of continuous boundaries and countless intermediate/borderline

cases

ignore non-discrete phenomena or dismiss them as minor
Ferdinand de Saussure:
language only consists
of identities and differences

the discreteness delusion

a bit too simple-minded

appeal of scientific rigor but extreme reductionism

meaning...
B, C, and D are less prototypical representatives
We still need

a theory for:
boundaries between related categories
boundaries in the syntagmatic structure

structure that combines the properties of discrete and non-discrete: focal

structure
Focal phenomena are simultaneously distinct and related
Focal structure is a special kind of structure found in linguistic phenomena, alternative to the discrete structure
It is the hallmark of linguistic and, possibly, cognitive phenomena, in constrast to simpler kinds of matter

discrete structure
▐
continuous structure
focal structure
1
2
1
2

of language?
I don’t think so
Or, perhaps, properties of the observing

human mind?
This directly relates to one of the key issues in The Critique of Pure Reason

knowledge of the world
“The schematicism by which our understanding deals

with the phenomenal world ... is a skill so deeply hidden in the human soul that we shall hardly guess the secret trick that Nature here employs.”
NB: Standards of scientific thought have developed on the basis of physical, rather than cognitive, reality
Physical reality is much more prone to the discrete approach
Compared to physical world, in the case of language and other cognitive processes Kant’s problem is much more acute
because mind here functions both as an observer and an object of observation, so making the distinction between the two is difficult

(Aristotelian, “rationality”, “left-hemispheric”, etc.)
The scientific approach is inherently biased to

noticing only the fitting phenomena
It is like eyeglasses filtering out a part of reality
Addressing another part of it is perceived as pseudo-science, or quasi-science at best
Language is unknowable, a Ding an sich?

and cognitive science that address non-discrete phenomena:
not as exceptions or

periphery of language and cognition
but rather as their core
Can we outwit our mind?
Several avenues towards this goal

that is obviously non-discrete
Example: Sandro V. Kodzasov’s analysis of formal

quantity iconically depicting mental quantity
It was lo-ong ago. Oh, tha-at’s the reason.
He just left. That’s clear.
Develop new approaches on the basis of prosody, then apply them to traditional, “segmental” language

visual code: gesticulation and generally “body language”
Michael Tomasello: in order

to “understand how humans communicate with one another using a language <…> we must first understand how humans communicate with one another using natural gestures”

Когда он ехал по дорóге, он поравнялся с дéвочкой,

(From the materials of Julia Nikolaeva)

Simultaneously: iconic gestures and pointing gestures

fashion of “mathematical methods” in linguistics
This did not bring much

fruit, primarily because of the non-discreteness effects
Time for another attempt of bringing in more useful kinds of mathematics
Ongoing project: study of non-categorical referential choice
When we mention a person/object, we choose from a set of options, such as a proper name (Kant), a common name (the philosopher), or a reduced form (he)
This choice is not always deterministic: sometimes both Kant and he are appropriate
Probabilistic modelling and machine learning techniques used to simulate human behavior in non-categorical situations

turn to discrete analysis
This is why discrete linguistics is so

popular, in spite of the omnipresence and obviousness of non-discrete effects
This may be our inherent bias, or a habit developed in natural sciences, or a cultural preference
But in the case of language and other cognitive processes we do see the limits of the traditional discrete approach
It remains an open question if cognitive scientists are able to eventually overcome the strong bias towards “pure reason” and discrete analysis, or language will remain a Ding an sich
But it is worth trying to circumvent this bias and to seriously explore the focal, non-discrete structure that is in the very core of language and cognition

due to Kant’s Geist
Immanuel Kant, lecturing to Russian officers