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From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Computer Languages and the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis
Keywords: computer languages, Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, linguistics
Message-ID: <1445@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu>
Date: 21 Aug 90 17:14:11 GMT
References: <5137@munnari.oz.au>
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In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes:
> 
> ( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is : 
>          " Language shapes the way we think,

	Okay.

> 	   and determines what we can think about. " )

	A professor in pragmatics told me this spring that the theory
only claims that a given language forces its users to mentally keep
track of certain information like time-of-occurence, etc. that is
needed to make correct decisions about tense, etc. that are *required*
to form sentences.  I believe the comparison S/W used to illustrate
this was the bookkeeping required by a Southwest Native American language
(Hopi?) regarding the source or validation of information - evidently
there are markers performing the function of "FOAF", etc. that are as
necessary to well-formedness in that language (which does not mark tense)
as tense is to English (which does not mark validation).  Of course,
the Native American language can express time-of-occurence if need be,
just as English can express source-of-information, but neither is
explicitly required by the language itself.  I believe the traditional
example:

(~11 Inuit language words for snow) and (~1 English word for snow)
 ==> (Inuit language and English users think about snow differently)

might not be due to S/W and probably misrepresents their idea.  But
I am not a linguist, nor have I read their work.  I just wanted to suggest
that applications of S/W may not be what you actually want to look for.