Linguistic Focus

Disclaimer:

I am not a linguist. As such, I may have misinterpreted some of the finer points of the strategies presented below. Also, Instrumentation is a "work in progress", so the methods that I have specified for implementing these linguistic strategies are almost certain to evolve as my understanding of language matures.

Furthermore, this document is an initial foray into the various linguistic categories below. Instrumentation will probably forever be a human-computer pidgin language, so it is actually intended to be stilted compared to the average range of expressive options available in natural languages.

Introduction

This is an exploration of the ways in which Instrumentation can fulfill the needs of human communication.

The science of linguistics has identified a variety of methods by which various languages encode information. We shall first attempt to categorize those methods according to the general Instrumentation ontology in order to better understand their intent. We will then attempt to show how Instrumentation can fulfill their functions. 

The Instrumental view of Linguistics

Instrumentation is based on the supposition that everything can be organized according to the trigrams of the I Ching. Thus, it is inevitable that the science of language itself would eventually fall into Instrumentation's clutches.

This section shows how I have initially categorized several major linguistic schemes. Because of the diversity and flexibility of human communication, there are often multiple ways to encode the same information. The organization below may not reflect every possible expression of these schemes, but I believe it shows my overall intent.

We are using the Articulation layer as the ontology for this taxonomy. The Articulation layer governs the relationships between the entities (or nouns) in a sentence. As such, it is the major source of encoding information that is not covered by nouns, adjectives and adverbs. 

The exceptions to this are things such as the basic plural form (one or more than one), which is covered by the Description layer; and emotional subtext, which is covered by the Hypodescriptive Block.

We see below the outer spokes of the Articulation layer of a glyph.

The Articulation Types and the linguistic schemes that relate to each Type are:

External information management (data going out) .

• Intention - the real reason, creating original data or information
  
• Agency - the cause or initiator of an event
• nominative Case - indicates the subject of the sentence
  
• vocative Case - indicates direct address by the author
  
• Tense - Verbs: future (especially with verbs that show personal intent)
  
• Interpretation - adding to data, transferring information
• ablative Case - indicates motion from an object in space, time or condition
  
• accusative Case - indicates the direct object of the sentence
• Comparison - degree of comparison of adjectives and adverbs
• Mood - verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying
• but see 'interrogative mood' below
  
• Voice - describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments ( active / passive subject, object, etc.)
• Depiction - not adding to data, verbatim description 
• Aspect - how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time
• locative Case - indicates a (static) location
  
• Person - Verbs: singular / plural, direct / indirect, self / other
• Number - nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions
• Tense - Verbs: present and past (especially with verbs that show current conditions)
• Interrogation - a request for information or data, indicates doubt
  
• Polarity - an affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its falsity
• Interrogative Mood - any noun, adjective, adverb or Hypodescriptive term can be marked as 'questionable' using the Social Interrogation Qualifier

• Extrapolation - creating new information from old data or information
• dative Case - indicates the indirect object of the sentence
• instrumental Case - indicates the means by which action is done
• Modality - attaches expressions of belief, attitude and obligation to statements 
• might, may, can, etc.
• Transitivity - whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take
• Valency - the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate
• Interpolation - integrating existing data (old and new) 
• Animacy - has volition, is sentient or perceives, causes a change of state, or moves
• Focus - determines which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information
• Mirativity - encodes the speaker's surprise or the unpreparedness of his mind
• Topic -
  
• the topic (or theme) of a sentence is what is being talked about, and
  
• the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic
• Recognition - accepting new data, matching new data with old data
• Clusivity - a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns
• Gender - male, female, neuter, hermaphrodite, transgendered, etc.
  
• genitive Case - indicates ownership
• Noun class - a system of categorizing nouns
• Recollection - reviewing old data or information
• Definiteness - distinguishing between entities that are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases [the]) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases [a])
• Evidentiality - the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement

There are questions of Evidentiality between the schemes that I have placed within the Interpretation and Depiction Types. My division is based on the (also debatable) simplicity and obviousness of the relationships being described. I do, however, realize that a simple distinction like Number might actually be a matter of Interpretation in a given sentence.

Likewise, Interpolation and Recognition depend on ones familiarity with the matter at hand. I am erring on the side of minimal knowledge as a nod to "worst case conditions".

The classifications above are an attempt to divine the spirit of the linguistic schemes. The following section shows how Instrumentation facilitates the required informational encoding. These two sections are distantly related in that they deal with the same subject matter, but the methods employed may not invoke the same types of madness.

"How I did it."    (Victor Frankenstein's Journal's Title)
-- Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein

This is an operational view of grammatical categories and the strategies used by Instrumentation to support them.

Instrumentation uses both an inflectional case system and analytic constructions, because constructions that use the Articulation layer are part of the noun, adjective or adverb glyph that is being modified (inflectional through use of a suffix), while constructions that use the Description layer require a separate glyph (analytic).

Since 'general' verbs are part of the Articulation layer, they always require a separate glyph when they are being modified by the Articulation layer. 'Dog Verbs' are in the Description layer, and so they can be modified by the Articulation layer within a single glyph.

I haven't determined how these minor efficiencies will affect the overall use of the language, but I'm sure that this will help determine when the "Dog Verbs" will most often be used.

When greater specificity is needed, the Articulation layer can always be used to help modify a noun or verb. For example, Instrumentation verbs do not really cover events that happen in both the far past and the present. The articulation terms "the habitual" or "the ongoing" could be added to a sentence to modify the duration of the tense and aspect.

Nouns:

• Agency - the cause or initiator of an event
• The initial noun is normally the source of the action
• Instrumentation does not have a 'passive voice'
  
• If the actor has been introduced in a previous sentence or can assumed to be clear within the context (especially with actors such as 'you' or 'I'), a verb can replace the initial noun by using agreement in person.
  
• Animacy - has volition, is sentient or perceives, causes a change of state, or moves
• Nouns are either (passive) entities or (active) actors this is specified with the the Action lath from the Description layer.
• Gender - the biological, social, relational or apparent sex of a person, place, thing or event
• Gender, age, intelligence and weight, along with physical ability and social status must be explicitly defined using nouns and adjectives
• However, see "Noun class" below
  
• Noun class - a system of categorizing nouns
• The I Ching is used to categorize everything 
• There are 256 "Categorical" noun classes
• the only one that specifically relates to gender is 'pregnancy'
• the 'mother' category actually includes all immediate (extended, atomic) family members
  

Verbs:

• Aspect - how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb, relates to the flow of time.
• Verbs reference events that have happened 'once' or 'many times'
• 'Once' may actually mean 'a few times'
• These events may happen in the near or far, future or past
  
• Number - nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions
• Only verbs require number agreement with the subject
• This allows verbs to replace a predefined noun
  
• Person - 1st, 2nd 3rd, etc.
• Only verbs require person agreement with the subject
• This allows verbs to replace a predefined noun
• Tense - Verbs past present and future
• Verbs only have past and future tenses
• The present is expressed by the 'near past continuing' tense
• Transitivity - whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take
• Individuals will tend to supply direct or indirect objects depending on their experience with their native language
• this should not confuse the receiver in most cases
  
• "I look the dog" or "I see at the dog" sounds awkward, but the meaning is clear
  
• Verbs are currently all assumed to be ambitransitive
• this may change as the language matures, but there is currently no 'transitivity marking'
  
• Valency - the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate
• This is currently unimplemented
• it may be used with lists, arrays and function parameters (#7800 and #7900)
• Voice - describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (active / passive subject, object, etc.)
• all statements are in the active voice
• the person may be indirect to establish distance between an author and the act
  
• Mood - verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying
• Emotion is encoded using the Hypodescriptive block
  

Adjectives and Adverbs:

• Comparison - degree of comparison of adjectives and adverbs
• The Description layer handles Comparison

Articulation: Syntactic or Predicate distinctions

• Case - includes nominative, accusative, dative, genitive etc..
• Clusivity - a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns
• The Logical Operators, 'and', 'or' and 'xor' can be attached to any pronoun
  
• Definiteness - distinguishing between entities that are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases [the box]) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases [a box])
• The use of specific Object Specifiers (such as 'the original') and non- specific Class Specifiers (such as 'for each') determine the type of Definiteness
• Evidentiality - the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement
• Any noun, adjective, adverb or Hypodescriptive term can be marked as 'questionable' using the Social Interrogation Qualifier
• Other Articulation suffixes can be used to explicitly encode the source and reliability of a given piece of information, using terms such as:
• 'the unlikely', 'provided by', 'already proven at', 'approximately at', 'perhaps', 'is similar to', 'else if', 'describes', 'for some', 'deduce as', 'standard deviation is', etc.
• Mirativity - encodes the speaker's surprise or the unpreparedness of his mind
• Emotion is encoded using the Hypodescriptive block
  
• Modality - allows speakers to attach expressions of belief, attitude and obligation to statements (may, can)
  
• The Social Operators are the major source of this functionality
• The Logical Operators can also be used to define obligation (on case of)
  

Negation:

• Polarity - an affirmative (positive) form is used to express the validity or truth of a basic assertion, while a negative form expresses its falsity
• Negation is provided by Unplugging the glyph
• any noun, adjective, adverb or Hypodescriptive term can be marked as 'questionable' using the Social Interrogation Qualifier

Unused or Status Unknown:

• Topic - the topic (or theme) of a sentence is what is being talked about, and the comment (rheme or focus) is what is being said about the topic
• The initial noun is normally the topic
• Instrumentation does not have a 'passive voice'
• Everything else is the comment
• the relationship, the object, and all of the data elements
• 'data elements' are the adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, etc. that define the subject, the relationship or the object.
  
• Focus - determines which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information
• the 'comment' (see above) should contain information about the subject
• the information might not always be 'new'