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> I'm not convinced by reason #1 because words are distinct even in speech. No matter how fast or continuous your speech when you say, "The dog jumped", everyon

> I'm not convinced by reason #1 because words are distinct even in speech. No matter how fast or continuous your speech when you say, "The dog jumped", everyone will agree that "dog" is a distinct thing, even if you're illiterate. It seems quite logical to separate "dog" from the words before and after when you write. Clearly you've never tried to learn a second language? Word segmentation is a very difficult task for non-native speakers. Segmentation failure is a common error in children learning for the first time. The word breaks are only obvious to you because you've had decades of daily practice parsing them. Look at a speech stream as a waveform or spectrogram, and they vanish: they are objectively not there.

computator 8y ago
Since several people made the same point about word segmentation, I obviously didn't express myself very well. What I was trying to say is that, assuming you speak the language, you will recognize "dog" a separate ‘ thing’ in a sentence. If I point to a German Shepherd asking what that is, anyone who speaks English can reply "dog". It can't be shorter; it could be longer but then you're adding information ("big dog"). Even illiterate people know "dog" as a distinct ‘ thing’. Since even spoken words are distinct concepts, with a beginning and end, and having boundaries (even if the speech waveform looks continuous), it seems natural to show the boundaries (eg., by placing spaces) if you going to starting writing down the words. Well, we know the spaces weren't added in early writing, by why not? Wikipedia's reason #1 is that adding inaudible spaces would be illogical. I'm not convinced that that was the main reason. The other reasons seem more plausible.
- shkkmo 8y ago
  Well, if showing the boundaries doesn't matter for native speakers in spoken language, why would it be natural to assume that it is needed in written language?
kempbellt 8y ago
Since we are talking about accuracy and efficiency of language here via a textual interface, I'll voice the following observation, and attempt to not be overly pedantic The statement/question "Clearly you've never tried to learn a second language?" is an expression pattern I see frequently. A statement ended with a question mark. Perhaps it was meant to be intentionally cheeky? Which would be funny, if I knew to interpret it that way. A /s would make this more obvious to me Or possibly, the sentence was started based on an assumption. This was realized part way through, then a ? was tacked on at the end? Is there another way to interpret this expression that I am not aware of? Assumptions of others' knowledge seems to be commonplace, yet we seem to still convey ideas somewhat decently. "Rum and Coke" vs "Roman Coke". Maybe Roman's love their rum and Coke? Either way, odds are, I'll receive the correct drink. In regards to the original article. Here are my assumptions. I perceive a sentence as a train-of-connected-thoughts that conveys an actional expression of a person's experience, as well as their attached feelings to that experience. In that regard, I similarly view any attached grammar. "The dog did a backflip?!" - A person receives data of an experience, first checks it's validity, realizes it falls outside their current understanding of possibility, then proceeds to double-check that they received the data correctly > Receiver of data: "Wait, did I hear that correctly?" "The dog did a backflip!?" - A person receives data of an experience, first accepts it (likely first-hand or from a reliable source), then realizes it falls outside their current understanding of possibility based on other reinforced models of reality, and proceeds to doubt said data) > Receiver of data: "I didn't believe my own eyes!" "The dog did a backflip‽" - A person doesn't have a preconceived notion for the data they are receiving, and has received it in a way that conveys that it is extraordinary - conveyed below > Presenter of data: "The dog did a backflip!" > Receiver of data: "Do dogs not usually do backflips?" Feel free to correct me if I am wrong

computator 8y ago

Since several people made the same point about word segmentation, I obviously didn't express myself very well. What I was trying to say is that, assuming you speak the language, you will recognize "dog" a separate ‘ thing’ in a sentence. If I point to a German Shepherd asking what that is, anyone who speaks English can reply "dog". It can't be shorter; it could be longer but then you're adding information ("big dog"). Even illiterate people know "dog" as a distinct ‘ thing’. Since even spoken words are distinct concepts, with a beginning and end, and having boundaries (even if the speech waveform looks continuous), it seems natural to show the boundaries (eg., by placing spaces) if you going to starting writing down the words. Well, we know the spaces weren't added in early writing, by why not? Wikipedia's reason #1 is that adding inaudible spaces would be illogical. I'm not convinced that that was the main reason. The other reasons seem more plausible.

shkkmo 8y ago
Well, if showing the boundaries doesn't matter for native speakers in spoken language, why would it be natural to assume that it is needed in written language?

kempbellt 8y ago

Since we are talking about accuracy and efficiency of language here via a textual interface, I'll voice the following observation, and attempt to not be overly pedantic The statement/question "Clearly you've never tried to learn a second language?" is an expression pattern I see frequently. A statement ended with a question mark. Perhaps it was meant to be intentionally cheeky? Which would be funny, if I knew to interpret it that way. A /s would make this more obvious to me Or possibly, the sentence was started based on an assumption. This was realized part way through, then a ? was tacked on at the end? Is there another way to interpret this expression that I am not aware of? Assumptions of others' knowledge seems to be commonplace, yet we seem to still convey ideas somewhat decently. "Rum and Coke" vs "Roman Coke". Maybe Roman's love their rum and Coke? Either way, odds are, I'll receive the correct drink. In regards to the original article. Here are my assumptions. I perceive a sentence as a train-of-connected-thoughts that conveys an actional expression of a person's experience, as well as their attached feelings to that experience. In that regard, I similarly view any attached grammar. "The dog did a backflip?!" - A person receives data of an experience, first checks it's validity, realizes it falls outside their current understanding of possibility, then proceeds to double-check that they received the data correctly > Receiver of data: "Wait, did I hear that correctly?" "The dog did a backflip!?" - A person receives data of an experience, first accepts it (likely first-hand or from a reliable source), then realizes it falls outside their current understanding of possibility based on other reinforced models of reality, and proceeds to doubt said data) > Receiver of data: "I didn't believe my own eyes!" "The dog did a backflip‽" - A person doesn't have a preconceived notion for the data they are receiving, and has received it in a way that conveys that it is extraordinary - conveyed below > Presenter of data: "The dog did a backflip!" > Receiver of data: "Do dogs not usually do backflips?" Feel free to correct me if I am wrong