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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Digital infinity | 3/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_infinity | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:40:55.677545+00:00 | kb-cron |
In the 1950s, phonology was generally considered the most rigorously scientific branch of linguistics. For phonologists, "digital infinity" was made possible by the human vocal apparatus conceptualised as a kind of machine consisting of a small number of binary switches. For example, "voicing" could be switched 'on' or 'off', as could palatisation, nasalisation and so forth. Take the consonant [b], for example, and switch voicing to the 'off' position—and you get [p]. Every possible phoneme in any of the world's languages might in this way be generated by specifying a particular on/off configuration of the switches ('articulators') constituting the human vocal apparatus. This approach became celebrated as 'distinctive features' theory, in large part credited to the Russian linguist and polymath Roman Jakobson. The basic idea was that every phoneme in every natural language could in principle be reduced to its irreducible atomic components—a set of 'on' or 'off' choices ('distinctive features') allowed by the design of a digital apparatus consisting of the human tongue, soft palate, lips, larynx and so forth. Chomsky's original work was in morphophonemics. During the 1950s, he became inspired by the prospect of extending Roman Jakobson's 'distinctive features' approach—now hugely successful—far beyond its original field of application. Jakobson had already persuaded a young social anthropologist—Claude Lévi-Strauss—to apply distinctive features theory to the study of kinship systems, in this way inaugurating 'structural anthropology'. Chomsky—who got his job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology thanks to the intervention of Jakobson and his student, Morris Halle—hoped to explore the extent to which similar principles might be applied to the various sub-disciplines of linguistics, including syntax and semantics. If the phonological component of language was demonstrably rooted in a digital biological 'organ' or 'device', why not the syntactic and semantic components as well? Might not language as a whole prove to be a digital organ or device? This led some of Chomsky's early students to the idea of 'generative semantics'—the proposal that the speaker generates word and sentence meanings by combining irreducible constituent elements of meaning, each of which can be switched 'on' or 'off'. To produce 'bachelor', using this logic, the relevant component of the brain must switch 'animate', 'human' and 'male' to the 'on' (+) position while keeping 'married' switched 'off' (-). The underlying assumption here is that the requisite conceptual primitives—irreducible notions such as 'animate', 'male', 'human', 'married' and so forth—are genetically determined internal components of the human language organ. This idea would rapidly encounter intellectual difficulties—sparking controversies culminating in the so-called 'linguistics wars' as described in Randy Allen Harris's 1993 publication by that name. The linguistic wars attracted young and ambitious scholars impressed by the recent emergence of computer science and its promise of scientific parsimony and unification. If the theory worked, the simple principle of digital infinity would apply to language as a whole. Linguistics in its entirety might then lay claim to the coveted status of natural science. No part of the discipline—not even semantics—need be "contaminated" any longer by association with such 'un-scientific' disciplines as cultural anthropology or social science.
== See also == Decoding Chomsky Generative linguistics "The Library of Babel" Origin of language Origin of speech Recursion
== References ==
== Further reading == Knight, C. and C. Power 2008. 'Unravelling digital infinity'. Paper presented to the 7th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG), Barcelona, 2008. Knight, C. 2008. 'Honest fakes' and language origins. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15, No. 10–11, 2008, pp. 236–48.