A Tiny Language: Implementing a 'Real Character'

This is the fifth in a series of papers (following Maun 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017) which attempts to outline the possible development of an international digital means of communication. Based on the ideas of the 17^th- and 18^th-century ‘language projectors’ (e.g., Wilkins, Dalgarno and Leibniz), the ‘Real Character’ proposed here (hereafter, RC) is a pasigraphy, a read-only system of characters, some iconic, some symbolic, which may be read by a reader who does not speak or read the language of the writer. While early inventors of such systems imagined a ‘universal language’ which could be written for anyone and read by anyone, Maun (2017) shows that a symbolic language can be constructed but, because of the way in which different cultures and languages divide up ‘reality’, it would be more effective to focus or tune this symbolic language to that of the intended recipient.

In brief, the elements accumulated thus far include:

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Both Subject and Complement will contain elements such as articles, demonstratives and adjectives. Relative clauses are shown as sub-sentences linked to their referent. Verbs may contain a tense-marker (see Sections 2.4, 2.6 and 3.2), but adverbial modifications are shown outside the main T-bar structure (see Sections 2.8-2.11).

If an indirect object is to be shown, the T becomes an I-shape, with the indirect object at the bottom (Maun 2013, 2016). The symbols are read, not in any linear order, but in the natural order of the recipient’s own language, e.g., for Japanese, S-C-V.

The present paper is divided into two parts. Part A defines the aims of the article and sets out various principles that will govern the syntax and arrangement of a Tiny Language. There will be discussion of principles of syntax and semantics from natural languages which are used to justify their incorporation into RC. Part B introduces the icons and symbols that will be used and which will combine to produce more complex glyphs. Aspects of the aesthetics of a TL are considered, as well as the possible use of RC as a written, as well as a digital, script.

The aim of the present paper is to take a Tiny Language, i.e., a very limited amount of lexical material from BE, and a restricted number of rules, and to investigate how such a language might be represented in RC and how this small body might best be visually represented. The term ‘Tiny Language’ (hereafter, TL) is taken from computing, in which small amounts of data and rules are combined.

The syntactic arrangements which will be used to represent the TL will be discussed, as more than the simple Subject-Verb-Complement structure will be required.

The question of cognitive dissonance and the role of aesthetics in the creation of RC script will also be addressed, using historical examples for guidance. It may then be possible to signpost ways forward for further development.

In both creating characters and structures, and in imparting them to readers, we work on ‘the Telescope Principle’, that is to say, one begins with a very small amount of material and then one gradually increases it, so that the overall picture gradually becomes larger, much like looking through a telescope. This also applies to the learning of the characters—a little at a time.

In order to test the proposed framework, we shall need to define the limited vocabulary that will constitute the TL. Once this lexicon has been established, it will become possible to define ways in which elements may be combined and the ways in which these lexical items may be represented in what we may term RC script.

If we confine ourselves to BE as it stands, it is not immediately possible to create even a simple sentence such as A man leaves a house, as BE contains no verb leave. This is because leave is considered to be a synonym of two other combined BE elements, go and from. Similarly, there is no verb arrive, since this can be created from come and to. We shall therefore choose the first part of the lexicon from words which occur in BE. The second part of the lexicon will consist of words such as leave and arrive which can only be formed using other, more basic BE elements, or for which a Haag symbol already exists.

Such an approach will of necessity produce very short (and, frankly, not very useful) sentences in the early stages of the development of the TL but greater complexity and applicability will gradually develop.

It was suggested in Maun (2013) that any distinctive Speech Act (SA) marker such as ‘Question’ (?), ‘Exclamation’ (!) or ‘Command’ (!!) should be placed at the junction of the two strokes of the T-bar. It seems logical, however, to de-clutter the T-bar and to use available space to place any necessary Speech Act marker. Therefore, rather, than place the SA marker within the T-bar, as previously suggested, it would be preferable to place it at the very top of the glyph, thus announcing to the reader the nature of the speech act about to be encountered (cf. Spanish punctuation, which requires an inverted question mark before a question and an inverted exclamation mark before an exclamation or command). The SA marker is thus the first element encountered in this new arrangement and presented using RSVP. It is an important rule of RC that, whatever the reader’s native direction of reading, RC glyphs are always read from top to bottom (see Maun 2015).

Modalities such as ‘Possibility’, ‘Impossibility’ and ‘Probability/Likelihood’ may be included in the gamut of SA markers. It thus becomes possible to mark sentences with initial parts such as ‘It is possible that…’, ‘Is it possible that...?’, ‘It is not possible that...’ and ‘Is it likely that...?’. Moreover, introductory phrases such as ‘I think that...’, ‘I believe that...’, ‘I hope that...’ can be treated in the same way, rather than as the main clause of a complex sentence. With such a device clearly marked at the top of the glyph, the reader immediately knows ‘where the sentence is going’.

To add tense, it is necessary to add a tense marker, except for the present which remains unmarked as the ‘default’ tense. In Haag’s (1902) system, ‘past’ is regarded as a shift of ‘in front of’ in the Spatial category into the Temporal category. Similarly, ‘future’ is regarded as a shift of ‘behind’ into the Temporal category. These markers will be used to define tense and placed in the appropriate position adjacent to the verb, as defined below (Section 3.2).

It must be recognised that not all languages mark tense in the way that European languages do, e.g., Mandarin (Crystal 1987) and Pirahã (Everitt 2012), while others define time periods and distance from the speaker differently, e.g., Matses (Deutscher 2010). This language also requires the truth of a statement to be defined, along with tense. These are complex issues which cannot be dealt with at this stage of the development of RC. As shown in Maun (2017), the use or otherwise of such markers will be dependent in part on the language of the reader. While RC’s elements will probably be universal, their combination and use will be pragmatic. One size will definitely not fit all.

Kroskrity (2015) points out that in Arizona Tewa, an indigenous American language of the Kiowa-Tanoan family, the position of a syntactic element in a sentence in part gives information on that element’s function. Thus a simple S-V-C sentence can consist of the roles AGENT-PATIENT-VERB, but the PATIENT can be incorporated within the VERB. Any sentence containing this construction guarantees that the element within the verb is the PATIENT. However, a sentence can also consist of an unmarked noun, followed by a noun marked as OBLIQUE, followed by a second noun marked as OBLIQUE, then the VERB marked as INVERSE. In this case the first noun is taken as the PATIENT, the second as the AGENT, the third as INSTRUMENT, with the verb form indicating that the sentence is to be taken as passive in sense. A slightly simplified version of Kroskrity’s example is as follows (OBL = OBLIQUE; INV = INVERSE; PST = PAST TENSE):

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While two nouns are marked as OBLIQUE, it is the position of ‘that car’, occurring after ‘that man’, which indicates that it is to be interpreted as an INSTRUMENT. Place-value determines function.

In a language closer to home, namely English, function may also be marked by position. If a verb requires both a direct and an indirect object in which the preposition ‘to’ is suppressed, the indirect object must precede the direct object. Thus:

This adds support to the incorporation of place-value as a guiding principle in RC. In standard English, this ordering is also required with pronouns. Thus, substituting pronouns for the nouns in the above sentences, we get:

As indicated in Maun (2017) some dialects of English (e.g., Northern) require a reversal of this order. It should be noted, however, that the reversal is quite systematic. In these dialects, the place-value is quite consistent, i.e., the pronominal direct object precedes the pronominal indirect object: ‘I’ve given it him’. Place-value holds good.

We can thus use place value to indicate peripheral functionality, just as we have done for S-V-C on the T-bar

Traditionally, adverbs have been divided into those of Time, Manner and Place. This categorisation is somewhat simplistic but will suffice as a temporary device during the development of RC. That this tripartite division has some reality is shown by the grammar of German, which requires that, if there is more than one adverb or adverbial phrase, then the order must be Time (T) - Manner (M) - Place (P), e.g., Er (S) trank (V) dann (T) schnell (M) etwas Wasser (C) in der Küche (P) = ‘He then quickly drank some water in the kitchen.’ No other ordering is permissible with the present syntactic construction. (If the sentence commences with Dann (= ‘then’), however, this will have syntactic consequences, causing inversion of subject and verb [since the verb must remain as the second syntactic element] and separation from the other adverbial elements: Dann trank er schnell etwas Wasser in der Küche. Note that the remaining adverbials, M and P, retain their required order.)

Because adverbials are not central to a message, unlike S-V-C, it seems logical that they should be placed outside the T-bar. By placing them thus, their lack of centrality is emphasised and the T-bar itself remains uncluttered. It is therefore proposed that the adverbials should be marked using brace symbols ({,}), with Time at the top (as it is closely associated with the tense of the verb) and Place at the bottom. Manner will be placed on the right of the glyph. In all cases, the point of the brace symbol will face the adverbial adjunct.

Figure 1. Adverbial Positions

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As with S-V-C on the T-bar, the function of an adverbial is determined by place-value in the ‘orbit’ around it, i.e., if an adverbial is at the top, it indicates ‘time’, if on the right, it indicates ‘manner’, and if at the bottom, ‘place’.

Croft & Cruse (2004: 228) draw some complex distinctions between various types of sentences containing adverbial modification:

A) Oblique Adjunct Phrase: John ate the tart with a fork and spoon.

B) Prepositional Complement Phrase: John ate the tart in the refrigerator.

C) Circumstantial Phrase: John ate the tart in the living room.

D) Nominal Prepositional Phrase Marker: the tart on the table.

While these uses show real and important distinctions, only Type A, which falls under Instrumentality (see below, Section 2.9), and Type C, under Place, are genuine adverbial uses. Types B and D are reduced relative clauses - B: ‘…which was in the refrigerator’; D: ‘the tart which is/was on the table’. Ways of dealing with Types B and D will be shown in Section 2.12.

Traditional grammar would treat the two sentences He hit the nail with a hammer and He hit the nail repeatedly in a similar manner, regarding ‘with a hammer’ and ‘repeatedly’ simply as adverbs or adverbial phrases. The first, however, belongs to a category that we might call ‘instrumentality’, in which phrases are often introduced by ‘with’, ‘using’, ‘by’ or an adverb terminating in ‘-ly’. Thus:

The above examples of instrumentality, however, do not necessarily reflect how various languages express instrumentality. Some languages, such as Latin, use a preposition and an ablative case ending: gladius = a sword; cum gladio = with a sword. Hungarian uses suppletion, i.e., a morpheme completely changes its form when it comes in contact with another morpheme: a tyy = the needle; a tyyvel = with the needle; az eke = the plough; az ekeevel = with the plough (Koutsoudas 1966)

These are surface forms, however, and RC is concerned with meaning. To indicate ‘Instrumentality’ in RC, we can again use place-value. Expressions of instrumentality can be placed to the left of the verb, marked with a brace whose point faces leftwards.

Placing instrumentality does not, however, solve all our problems. We have seen in Maun (2017) how the Australian aboriginal language Pintjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (hereafter, P/Y) uses varying verbs for to strike, according to the manner of striking, e.g., with a stick, with the hand, or with a spear (Goddard 1993). In that paper we also noted the necessity to ‘tune’ or ‘focus’ RC for the recipient of a message, i.e., make adjustments according to conceptual or cultural requirements. Thus if we are sending a message to a speaker of P/Y, it will be necessary to have a basic symbol for strike, applicable to languages such as English, French and German, but also extra instrumental icons meaning ‘with a stick’, ‘with the hand’ and ‘with a spear’, so that the P/Y reader/writer can equate the characters with the verbs in P/Y.

Not all languages, however, are as simple in expressing instrumentality. In English, to lasso means to catch with a rope, a ‘lasso’ being a rope with a running noose. Such a definition will also suffice for French (prendre au lasso) or German (mit dem Lasso einfangen), and this could easily be illustrated for RC with a symbol for catch and an icon for cord, which exists as a lexical item in Basic English. However, Arizona Tewa makes no mention of a rope. Instead, two verbs are combined, -k’enu-, meaning ‘to throw’, and -khwii-, meaning ‘to tie’. (The dash represents a morpheme boundary in this, a polysynthetic language). Put together they produce -khwii-k’enu-, ‘tie throw’, meaning to lasso (Kroskrity 2015). Temporarily, we can use ‘@’ for ‘to tie’ and ‘**→’ for ‘to throw’ in RC. Since it is the throwing that is instrumental to the tying, the symbol for -k’enu- (**→) could be placed in Instrumental position in RC, i.e., on the left part of a symbol for the main verb, -khwii-, ‘@’, with a brace symbol to show that this instrumental.

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Thus, in accordance with Maun (2017), the glyph sent to a speaker of Arizona Tewa will be different from that sent to a speaker of English, French or German, but will be composed of basic symbols drawn from the RC lexicon. Similarly, as noted in the same paper, for German, for the verb ‘to go’, it is necessary to specify the manner of going, i.e., on foot, by car, by ship, by plane. For a German recipient of a message, the necessary symbol can be added to the left of that for the verb ‘to go’. (This will be dome automatically by the RCD, once the language of the recipient is specified.)

Adverbials of manner are often clearly marked in some languages, e.g., with ‘-ly’ in English, ‘-ment’ in French or ‘-erweise’ in German. Sometimes adverbial phrases using an adjective may replace a single adverb. Thus ‘in a ___ way’, ‘d’une façon___’, ‘auf einer ___ Weise’, where the blank represents an adjective. Some languages, e.g., German, permit the use of the adjective to act as an adverb, e.g., ‘Er spielt gut’ = ‘He plays well.’

RC is concerned with function and meaning, not with form, and we can therefore use place-value for adverbials of manner, rather than marking them in a particular way. As the right-hand space of our glyph remains currently unoccupied, we can place adverbs of manner, or adverbial expressions of manner, in that gap.

Thus the adjuncts modifying the sense of the kernel of the sentence (S-V-C) are now identifiable by their position as a ‘compass point’ in a glyph: Time (N), Place (S), Manner (E) and Instrumentality (W). If an expression is found in one of these position, it is because it is expressing that particular function, e.g., North = time, not manner, place, etc.

Once the syntactic and semantic conventions for these positions have been learnt, the reader may read them in the order natural to his/her native language.

The clauses of compound sentences, i.e., with coordinated clauses (‘…and…’/ ‘…or…’) will be joined by the ampersand (&) or the logical symbol for ‘or’, namely ‘v’.

The conjunction ‘but’ will be represented as ‘not and…’ (‘…¬&…’) (with the negative above the ampersand).

In RSVP on the RCD these secondary clauses will appear on the screen after the presentation of the clause to which they are to be attached. For present purposes, on the printed page, they will appear between clauses (‘Clause X & Clause Y’/ ‘Clause X v Clause Y’ / ‘Clause X ¬& Clause Y’).

In complex sentences, i.e., those with a subordinating conjunction, adverbial clauses of time (e.g., ‘When I left…’) will appear in the same position as temporal adverbials, i.e., above the main clause, signalled by an upward-pointing brace. We shall not deal here with adverbial clauses of place, but these will appear at the bottom of the glyph, as do adverbials of place, and these will be marked by a downward-pointing brace.

Relative clauses will be attached to the noun or pronoun to which they refer. Clauses referring to the subject or complement of the main clause will be joined to that subject by the symbol ∫, which may be curved to fit the structure of the sentence.

Our first nouns will be: person, man, woman and house. The first verb will be see.

These will be represented as follows, with explanatory notes in the table to explain their construction or origin.

Table 1. Basic Characters

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With these elements it is possible to create at least the following sentence. Note that (a) the verb is tenseless, (b) there are no articles with the nouns, and (c) ‘house’ serves as the complement, not an adverbial of place. The nouns are taken to be indefinite.

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Notes:

3.2. Tense

To add tense, it is necessary to add a tense marker, except for the present which remains unmarked as the ‘default’ tense. In Haag’s system, as noted in Section 2.6, ‘past’ is regarded as a shift of ‘in front of’ from the Spatial category into the Temporal category. Similarly, future is regarded as a shift of ‘behind’ into the Temporal category.

While adverbial adjuncts of Time are placed above the verb, as being additional to it, tense markers will form part of the verb itself, placed on its left. This means that if we have TENSE+VERB+ADVERBIAL, we do not get too much vertical stacking.

If an adverbial of phrase of time is used, e.g., ‘yesterday’, ‘in two months’ time’, there is no need to mark the verb, as the tense symbol will be attached to the temporal adverbial, e.g., ‘yesterday + PAST’, ‘in two days’ time + FUTURE’.

Table 2. Tense Symbols

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Thus ‘man saw house’ is represented as:

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and ‘man will see house’ as:

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3.3. Pronouns

Having chosen the iconic Chinese character ‘rén’ as the most fundamental icon in RC (from which we have formed ‘man’ and ‘woman’), we may now use this character to form pronouns. The left ‘leg’ of the character will serve for singular pronouns, and the right for plural forms. A straight or curved cross-bar may be added to indicate gender, if required, and number will be indicated by the appropriate number of dots or points above the cross-bar. Thus:

Table 3. Pronouns

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Used adjectivally, these pronouns may represent ‘my’, your’, ‘his’, ‘her’, etc. When used in this way, they will be placed below the noun to which they refer.

3.5. Functional Symbols

In order to have elements which will allow the creation of full sentences in RC, it is necessary to add functional symbols.

Table 4. Functional Symbols

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3.6. Expanding the Lexicon

For the purposes of constructing the TL, let us add the following words. Most are taken directly from BE.

• Nouns: town, place, thing, day, writing, letter¹, car², aeroplane²

• Adjectives: quick, long, short

• Verbs: go, come, hear, give, send [(i) physically, (ii) electronically], do, leave³, arrive⁴

• Prepositions: in, from, at, to

• Conjunctions: and, or, but

• Numbers: 1-59

To these we shall add a small number of words which are not in BE, but are represented symbolically by Haag, or can be created.

¹ The Basic English Dictionary (1940) defines a letter as: ‘Words in writing sent to a person’. This term will therefore serve both for a hard-copy text (letter) and for an electronic message (text, e-mail, SMS), each with the appropriate verb.

² These concepts do not exist in BE but must be represented by an icon.

³ BE: ‘Go away (from)’. Haag has a ready-made symbol.

⁴ BE: ‘Come to’. Haag has a ready-made symbol.

Excluding the pronouns outlined above, this now gives us the following lexicon:

Table 5. Expanded Lexicon

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3.7. Combinatorics

By combining various lexical and functional symbols, we may arrive at further vocabulary which will be necessary and useful. Thus:

Table 6. Number and Temporal Adverbials

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This total set of words and expressions may appear to be a very small lexicon but once it is combined with markers indicating speech acts, tense, conjunctions, pronouns and functional markers there will be a considerable number of symbols and an increasingly large possibility of sentence and message-types.

3.8. Creating Sentences

We can now create some sample sentences, whose RC versions may be seen on the opposite page.

• (a) Does a man see a house?

• (b) The man did not see the house.

• (c) Did the man not see a woman?

• (d) I sent a message to you (sg.)

• (e) Did you (sg.) send a message to me?

• (f) It’s possible (that) the man sent a short message to you (sg.).

• (g) Tomorrow I shall go to (the) town.

• (h) Two days ago, I drove to (the) town.

• (i) In three weeks’ time, I shall fly to Paris. [Paris = P in a cartouche]

• (j) I shall leave Berlin at 15.45. [Berlin = B in a cartouche]

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• (k) I shall arrive in Paris and I shall quickly drive to my house.

• (l) I shall see you (pl.) there [in that place].

• (m) I did not go (drive) to the town.

• (n) There are two men in the house! I heard them.

• (o) I did not see them.

• (p) The men who were in the house have gone. Is it possible that they saw you (sg.)?

• (q) No. It’s impossible. I was behind the house.

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3.9. Exercises

A. What do sentences 1-5 (below) mean?

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B. How would you write...?

• 1. I saw an aeroplane.

• 2. Did you see my house?

• 3. John [J in cartouche] didn’t arrive in Berlin at 17.56 because he drove and didn’t fly.

• 4. Is it possible that you’ll be in Paris?

• 5. John sent me a long letter because he was in Paris.

See page 124 for answers.