posted
That's four snaps in a "Z" formation, pallie.
Prahaps it's best to consider this as a "sub-language" as abstract concepts dont seem to be possible for our tasty Dolphin friends, nor are sentence/language structures aparant.
Hmmm....I wonder how much of the dstinction in "clicks" is vibrational the way their echolocation is? The "language" might have started out as a kind of "Marco/Polo" game to give other pod members their health status and relative position in poor visibility conditions or as a predator warning.
Or they could be debating the length of the Defiant and cheering on their favorite Xini race.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
(A language [which is a [[possibly infinite]] set of strings, each composed of words [[which are formed from morphemes, which are in turn formed from symbols [[[from a finite collection [[[[called an alphabet]]]]]]], and together make up a lexicon]] according to certain syntactical production rules [[which define a grammar, and in natural languages are notoriously ambiguous]]] spoken by just one $individual is still a language, though its use for communication would be near-zero.)
((Whether the alphabet consists of letters, numbers, beeps, smells, or clicks is neither here nor there, really, so long as those constituents can be parsed.))
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
So...do Dolphins string these supposed "click-words" together or are they just proper-name identifiers? The definition seems a bit shakey- if I had a seperate word for everything, I should be able to get away with saying that word and gesturing to the object in question, still making myself clear (though abstractions would be difficult to convey).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
The definition itself applies better to formal languages than to natural ones, but if you just had seperate "words" for everything, then you wouldn't have a language, but instead an unexpressive and structureless set of (at best) very weakly related symbols, whereas the semantics of words in (sentences of) an actual language are arbitrary (ie. different meanings are mapped onto different concepts by different groups of speakers in different contexts) and much more delineated through the language's syntax. You also couldn't gesture to every object in your set (since, as you say, a lot of them would be abstract), so someone who didn't know each and every word in your set in terms of, say, English would have no real way of understanding you (as there would basically be ambiguities everywhere).
(Dolphins are apparently stuck at that level absent of a demonstrated grammar in their communication [sophisticated as it may be], with pre-arranged sonic patterns denoting concepts in their habitat, but their brain characteristics certainly don't seem to rule out the capacity to develop a language [even if we don't know what exactly is required for it beyond a high brain mass/body mass ratio].)
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Mabye they just have a million designations for "swim" "eat" and "mate"....mabye one for "shark!"
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
So, call #1 is "Look out- it's an eagle!" Call #2 is "Look out- it's a lepoard!"
and call #3 is...er.."Holy Shit! A Flying Lepoard!"
Monkeys suck: they spread disease to us (okay, mainly by us stupidly eating them, but still) and generally make a lot of crap and racket. Plus, anything that throws it's own fecees should die. I'd run for office on a "Kill all the monkeys" platform, but it'd be sure to be misinterperted as a bigotry thing and then I'd be supported by inbred yokels no better than monkeys themselves...
Pidgeons and Parrots should also be eliminated as they're useless, or possibly fed to endangered species that contribute to the ecosystem.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
I dont think more tan one "hack" would do anythng except give away the monkey's exact position for a circling eagle.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
"Plus, anything that throws its own feces should die."
Like small children.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
That's where being the dominant lifeform on the planet comes in- we make the rules and are exempt from them.
Besides, I've never seen a child throw it's fecees. Ever.
Hmm...unlike children, monkeys wont grow out of such behavior. (Adult humans that throw their own fecees should also be put to death- it's just not proper.)
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
"That's where being the dominant lifeform on the planet comes in- we make the rules and are exempt from them."
And it's exactly that sort of thinking for the past 10,000 years that's gotten us to the situation we're in right now.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
Of course- but dont think I'm being serious abour wiping out species.
Here in Florida we've had six serious alligator attacks this year and three deaths from them. The obvious issue is humans encroaching on animal's territory via development (and 500 people move to South Florida each week), but just an hor ago, while channel surfing, I watched some bozos on FOXNews going on about how the problem is really that liberals wont allow hunters to kill off all the "surplus" alligators and that's why people are getting eaten.
"Surplus gators"
Fucking moron....worse yet, alligators were already once hunted into near extinction and have only got off the endangered species list through twenty five years of careful conservation.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
