A Glossary of 

Hard-Science Linguistics

These definitions are paraphrased and quoted from Victor H. Yngve's From Grammar to Science: New foundations for general linguistics (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1996).  Relevant page numbers are given in parentheses.

Assemblage.  "[A] group of people together with their linguistically relevant surroundings involved in particular communicative behavior" (86).  An assemblage exists in the physical world and corresponds to the theoretical construct of linkage.  A person as a real physical object corresponds to the theoretical construct of a communicating individual.  The linguistically relevant surroundings include energy and means of energy flow, physical objects, and other parts of the surroundings.  These correspond to the theoretical constructs of channels, props, and setting.  See Real physical objects vs. theoretical constructs.  Cf. Linkage.

Channel.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of the physical means of energy flow itself in an assemblage that includes just those properties that are required to account for the communicatively relevant energy flow in the assemblage" (128).

Communicating individual.  A theoretical representation of a person including only those properties needed to describe the person's communicative behavior (124).

Domain of control.  "[A] region of the plex network" constituting "the active procedures and those that stand ready or nearly ready to be triggered" (276).

Expression, setting.  An abbreviated specification of a transition for a single property (154).

Law of componential partitioning.  "A communicating individual or a linkage can be represented in terms of a set of component properties in respect to which different individuals or linkages show partial sames and differences and in respect to which the same individual or linkage shows partial sames and differences at different times" (136).  The "most general law of communicative behavior" (136).

Law of restricted causation.  "Although the number of possible inputs and component properties is very large, the number involved as causes in any component expression is small" (157).

Law of small changes.  "Most of the properties of a communicating individual remain stable and unchanged over considerable periods of time; thus only a relatively small number of properties are changed during each transition" (153).

Linkage.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of an assemblage that includes just those properties that are required to account for the communicative behavior associated with the assemblage" (126).

Participant.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of a person that includes just those properties that are required to account for that person's communicative behavior in a particular assemblage" (125).

Plex.  A causal dynamic network of procedures all interrelated by their categorial and conditional properties, representing the structure of a communicating individual (171).

Principle of continuity of component properties.  "A component property will remain the same unless caused to change from time to time by transitions occurring at those times" (154).

Principle of equivalent componential histories.  "A component property or group of properties represents in a compact fashion any one of all those different possible histories or different sets of relevant past events that would influence current communicative behavior in a certain way" (170).

Procedure, control.  An abbreviated form of a setting procedure in which a set of causal properties is replaced by a single variable, used when the set of causal properties is common to more than one setting procedure and thus is posited to represent an aspect of plex structure (250-251).

Procedure, expectation.  A procedure which is either in a state of expectation of event X or not.  If in a state of expectation of X, occurrence of X cancels the state of expectation and results in the procedure changing a property that will affect some other procedure.  If not in a state of expectation, the procedure does nothing when X occurs (263-264).

Procedure, setting.  A list of all transitions (represented by setting expressions) in which a given property changes value (163).

Procedure, task.  A procedure incorporating an expectation procedure which controls one or more tasks or subtasks (264-265)

Prop.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of a real object, instrument, or device in an assemblage that includes just those properties that are required to account for its communicative relevance in the assemblage" (129).

Property.  Informational properties (categorial, conditional, and procedural properties) and foundational properties.

Property, categorial.  A property of a communicating individual which is culturally-defined and therefore is either present or absent in the individual (141).

Property, conditional.  A property of a communicating individual which is dynamic and which can take on any of a number of states at a given time (141).

Property, foundational.  "The unanalyzed properties of a communicating individual or a plex below the limit of verisimilitude of the model or theory we are dealing with at the moment" (172).

Property, linkage.  A property at the group level rather than at the individual level (177), either a property "of the functional parts of the linkage" or "features of the arrangement of the functional parts the constituents play in the linkage" (178).  "These aspects cannot be understood either in terms of the individuals participating in the system or in terms of any of the various other constituents of the system" (178).

Property, procedural.  A property of a communicating individual which is represented in terms of a procedure, e.g., a setting procedure.

Real physical objects vs. theoretical constructs.  The correspondence between the theoretical constructs of Human Linguistics and real physical objects is shown in the table below (130).

Role part.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of the functional part or role that a person plays in a particular assemblage" (193).

Science, assumptions of.  "The first assumption of all science is an ontological assumption, that there actually is a real world out there to be studied" (101).  "The second assumption of science is a regularity assumption, that the real world is coherent so we have a chance of finding out something about it" (101).  "The third assumption of science is a rationality assumption, that we can reach valid conclusions by reasoning from valid premises, that we can trust our ability to calculate predictions from our theories for comparison with the real world" (102).  "The fourth assumption of science is a causality assumption, that observed effects flow from immediate real-world causes" (102).

Science, criterion for acceptance of hypotheses and theories in.  "The standard criterion for acceptance of hypotheses or theories in science when doubts arise is the ability of their predictions to pass tests against the real world by means of careful observations and experiments" (99).

Science, criterion for acceptance of observations in.  "The standard criterion of acceptance of observational and experimental results in science is their reproducibility when questioned" (99).

Science, the nature of theories in.  Theories of the real world are "separate from and not to be confused with" either our observations of the real world nor the real world itself (98-99).

Setting.  "[A] representation in linguistic theory of other parts of the physical surroundings of a group in an assemblage [i.e., in addition to props and channels] that includes just those properties that are required to account for their communicative relevance in the assemblage" (129).

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This page is maintained by Douglas W. Coleman <Douglas.Coleman@utoledo.edu>.  Please report errors and faulty links.