Mystery Number One - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 17

2. Mystery Number One:
Using Unanalyzed External Surfaces

The first mystery of natural language communication may best be illustrated
with a foreign language situation. For example, if our hometown is in an
English-speaking country we can go to a restaurant there and successfully or-
der a glass of water by saying to the waiter Please bring me a glass of
water. If we travel to France, however, we will not be understood unless we
use French or the waiter speaks English. 1

2.1 Structure of Words

This difference between speaking in our language at home and abroad is
caused by the composite structure of words. Essential components are (i) the
surface , (ii) the meaning , and (iii) a convention connecting the surface and
the meaning. As informal examples, consider the following analyses of the
English word water and its French counterpart eau :

2.1.1 I NFORMAL EXAMPLES SHOWING BASIC WORD STRUCTURE

surface: water eau

convention

meaning:

English French

The two words have the same literal meaning, represented by three wavy lines
suggesting water. Their surfaces, however, are the different letter sequences
water and eau . Each surface is connected to its meaning by a convention
which every speaker of English or French has to learn. 2

1 “Whereas the individuals of all nonhuman species can communicate effectively with all their con-
specifics, human beings can communicate effectively only with other persons who have grown up in
their same linguistic community - typically, in the same geographical region.” Tomasello (2003), p. 1.
2 The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) describes the convention-based and therefore
“unmotivated” relation between language-dependent surfaces like water or eau and their meaning in
his Premier Principe: l'arbitraire du signe (Saussure 1916/1972; FoCL'99, Sect. 6.2).