Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
1. Elements of language
Any language that we come in contact with follows certain rules. This applies to
Spanish, English or any computer language. Naturally the fewer rules there are, the easier
the language. As the number of rules increase, so does the difficulty. Unfortunately there
may be no choice but to have a preponderance of rules, such as the language of
a
computer system. However, I shall get into that later.
For now, let us talk about the language of English, although you will soon realize
that what applies here will be the same for any language we consider. We have to start
with certain basic symbols, s pecifically the letters of the alphabet that apply to this
language. In our case they're the letters
a
through
z
. But we also need to mention the
capital letters,
A
through
Z
as well as certain punctuation, such as the comma, period,
question mark and a few other symbols. I think you get the idea. Our character set will be
around 75 different symbols. As we progress we shall be introduced to more and more of
them.
These elements or basic symbols will be put together to form words. Thus the
letters “t”, “h” and “e” form the word, “the.” Some letters put together may not form a
valid word, such as “q”, “j”, “x” and “h,” no matter what order we put them in. You
might reply that you went to school with a guy from Russia whose name was exactly
those letters in that same order, but that doesn't count. Some combinations will give us
words while others may not. There could come a day when the four letters we mentioned
form a valid word, since new words come into existence from time to time in the English
language.
A few examples of words that feature symbols other than our usual letters of the
alphabet are “son-in-law” and “o'clock,” and just recently one of my favorites, “24/7.”
Thus we need the hyphen, apostrophe and the slash, since some words use these
characters. We will run into situations where other symbols will be used, which will be
discussed when needed.
You might ask how it is determined whether a combination of letters is a valid
word. This is decided by predefined rules of the language. By referring to an English
dictionary, you can see whether you have a word. If you care to read an appropriate topic,
check out
The Professor and the Madman
by Simon Winchester. It's a tale of murder,
insanity as well as the making of the Oxford Dictionary.
As you can imagine, there are various editions of the dictionary as well as those
produced by different companies. This will mean that one dictionary might indicate that
one combination of letters is a word while another may not have it listed. This difference
along with the additions and deletions of words to the dictionary with each passing day
adds to the complexity of the language, which we will not be burdened with.
To temporarily bypass this dilemma, we shall use one dictionary only and thus
there will be a final say on whether or not a certain combination of symbols is a word.
When taking a group of words together, we next form what is referred to as a sentence.
Not all combinations of letters form valid words, and similarly not all combinations of
words form valid sentences. Again the determination is based on certain rules, which can
be found in various topics on the subject.
