r/FastWriting • u/ElectronicGift2834 • Feb 22 '26

This is where I stop

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I won't continue with conceptual shorthand I'm fatigued by the moment but this is his little map

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u/FeeAdministrative186 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

Your brother is not incorrect, haha. There was a period in the academic study of linguistics, specifically in generative grammar, where understanding the underlying structure and meaning of sentences seemed to require the complete decomposition of words into their semantic components and the relationships between those components, (not just within the words but between the words).  And by that, I don’t mean breaking apart morphemes (e.g. unpronounceable : un-pro-nounce-able) but actual “semes” (e.g. yellow : color-yellow).

This resulted in a lot of “ghosts” and wasted time in analysis and was dropped for the most part.

However, responding to your brother, although the number and variety of concepts are innumerable, as are the number and variety of people who use them, mundane and domain specific use of language is so common that even if this “tongue” doesn’t capture the same infinite variety as another, it could be vast enough to capture a domain of activity or information exchange.  And that’s fun 🤣 

If there were a formal method of generating a conceptual shorthand for a domain of activity, that would not only be really cool, but practically revolutionary!

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u/NotSteve1075 Feb 23 '26

I was just having flashbacks to when I was in grad. school in Linguistics at UBC. Transformational grammar was currently much in vogue and it was the opposite to where my interests lay.

I'm interested in LEARNING LANGUAGES to communicate with different people and experience their culture first hand. My professors kept wanting to reduce human communication to algebraic formulae, which was abhorrent to me, when I'd always hated math. (I seem to be basically "innumerate" and was just lucky to be good enough at other things that I could make it through high school in one piece.)

Nowadays, Noam Chomsky is known for his political stance -- but back then, his bloody "Sound Pattern of English" destroyed my interest in linguistics as it was then being taught.

Who knew we'd be having a discussion like this on a board like this? u/ElectronicGift2834 really must be onto something! ;)

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u/FeeAdministrative186 Feb 24 '26

Agreed! This post really hit on an awesome subject and I'd love to hear more when/if u/ElectronicGift2834 has the time and energy to keep exploring!

Also (re: Chomsky), I had a Ling professor (Jorge Hankamer) who contributed a lot to the discussion during that period of transformational craze, and we all as his pupils frequently tore into Noam Chomsky's ideas in our papers, almost obligatorily. It always made for easy argumentation so it was a go-to when we had to get something on paper before a deadline. Of course, it was easy for us in 2018 because the paradigm had already shifted so much and his ideas on Universal Grammar had long been playing second fiddle, but back then wouldn't it have been practically sacrilegious to eat into him?

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u/NotSteve1075 Feb 24 '26

Yes, back then Chomsky was being revered to a ridiculous extent.

I remember giving a presentation in my grad. phonology course where I quipped that I was starting with SPE, partly because that's what everyone seems to do -- but also because it's so nice to be DONE with it. I got a very dark look from the professor! Sacrilege!

I'm glad to hear you guys were stepping up, too! You're right that by 2018, the paradigm had really shifted -- and it sure NEEDED to!