Mystery Number One - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 21

The fundamental basis of the information transfer mechanism of natural lan-
guage is formulated as the First Mechanism of Communication:
2.2.2 T HE F IRST M ECHANISM OF C OMMUNICATION (M O C-1)
Natural language communication relies on modality-dependent
external surfaces which are linguistically unanalyzed in that they have
neither meaning nor any grammatical property.
MoC-1 is essential for the construction of DBS robots, and differs from the
assumptions of “Realism,” e.g., Situation Semantics (Barwise and Perry 1983,
cf. p. 226), and of Truth-Conditional Semantics (e.g., Montague 1974).
Given that the external surfaces are modality-dependent, while their internal
counterparts are modality-free, there is a constant mapping between modality-
dependent and modality-free representations during communication (Conver-
sion Universal 2 in 1.1.3). More specifically, in the speak mode, the mapping
is from modality-free analyzed internal surfaces to modality-dependent, unan-
alyzed external surface representations. In the hear mode, the mapping is from
modality-dependent unanalyzed external surfaces to modality-free analyzed
internal surface representations.
MoC-1 is a functional complement to Surface Compositionality. 13 Accord-
ing to this methodological principle, the grammatical analysis of language
signs may use only the word forms of concrete surfaces as the building blocks
of composition, such that all syntactic and semantic properties of a complex
expression derive systematically from the syntactic category and the literal
meaning of the lexical items (which are of a cognitive, modality-free nature).
It follows from MoC-1 that reconstructing the mechanism of natural lan-
guage communication cannot be limited to a grammatical analysis of isolated
language signs, but must include a functional model, defined as follows:
2.2.3 F UNCTIONAL MODEL OF NATURAL LANGUAGE COMMUNICATION
A functional model of natural language communication requires
1. a set of cognitive agents each with (i) a body, (ii) external interfaces for
recognition and action, and (iii) a memory for the storage and processing
of content,
2. a set of external language surfaces which can be recognized and produced
by these agents by means of their external interfaces using pattern match-
ing,