2 ms·

The author has discovered (linguistic) morphology. The `setRole` function he describes compiles to various morphemes in Japanese like は, を, etc. https://en.wi

The author has discovered (linguistic) morphology. The `setRole` function he describes compiles to various morphemes in Japanese like は, を, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics) We have this in English too except remarkably little of it actually comes out. Pluralization and possession being marked with -(e)s and -'s suffixes, and "subject-verb agreement" (one wouldn't say "the birds eats the food" but rather "the birds eat the food") are examples of morphology in action in English. Several folks think that the capacity for language in general is common to all humans, and that we have some proto-language hidden away deep in our brains, inaccessible, where our conception of the world bubbles up through layers of our brain/consciousness, until thoughts-as-words eventually fall out of our mouths or onto paper, and then the reverse process happens as well. (Incidentally I think the particle は marks the "topic" of the sentence, not the subject. The subject of the verb is marked with が, and Japanese speakers elide/omit a lot of parts of sentences, so there's tons of sentences where there is no explicit subject but there is a topic. Please correct me here, this is all from faint memory.)

philsnow 4y ago
To abuse the idea in the article, you could imagine the layers I mentioned in the brain are various stages of a thought compiler, and English is one front-end. In this analogy, C/Java/whatever are the "thought" and linked executables / bytecode bundles are the "words". Some languages share more intermediate compiler stages than others (Latin, Italian, French) whereas share a lot fewer (English and Japanese come to mind). One thing I like about this formulation is that humanity doesn't all need to have the same meat / "hardware" in their brains at the bottom layer (which is kind of unsatisfying and less-plausible, and makes me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey), as long as there is interoperability at the highest layer.
Ferret7446 4y ago
I would hazard a guess that Japanese is the second natural language the author has learned. When you learn your second language, you see the aspects of a language that you never explicitly learned with your first language, and additionally are able to connect that knowledge back to your first language.

philsnow 4y ago

To abuse the idea in the article, you could imagine the layers I mentioned in the brain are various stages of a thought compiler, and English is one front-end. In this analogy, C/Java/whatever are the "thought" and linked executables / bytecode bundles are the "words". Some languages share more intermediate compiler stages than others (Latin, Italian, French) whereas share a lot fewer (English and Japanese come to mind). One thing I like about this formulation is that humanity doesn't all need to have the same meat / "hardware" in their brains at the bottom layer (which is kind of unsatisfying and less-plausible, and makes me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey), as long as there is interoperability at the highest layer.

Ferret7446 4y ago

I would hazard a guess that Japanese is the second natural language the author has learned. When you learn your second language, you see the aspects of a language that you never explicitly learned with your first language, and additionally are able to connect that knowledge back to your first language.