Linguistics and HDM

[Kyrillion]

If you've seen that wierd 'alethiometer for sale thing' on the main page and followed the link, you might have noticed the interesting description given of an alethiometer. Namely that 'the alethiometer supplies the semantic content of a message, and the mind of the enquirer supplies the grammatical connections between the individual elements- only when the two work together does the full meaning become apparent.' I don't know if the seller wrote his him/herself, cos he/she seems pretty clueless otherwose (lotr? What?) but this seems like a very astute analogy for the alethiometer tome - which can be widened to take into account the theme of innocence and experience.

What I mean is that according to Chomsky children become fluent in their native tongue not by learning (because this would take a lot longer than is the case) but by 'acquisition'. He argues children have a pre-wired capacity for language which assimilates the grammar rules and vocabulary of a language sytem within a few years. However - he says - this capacity fades at a critical age around puberty. Adults do not have a natural acquisitive ability (or if they do it's to a greatly reduced extent).

This ties in very neatly with how Lyra reads the alethiometer: as a child she can 'acquire the ability' (it may even be her language capacity coming into play since the alethiometer gives message in a special language) but as an adult she must 'learn' the ability. The big difference, of course, is that Lyra's acquisition fades at puberty whereas we do not lose our ability to speak. Also, PP emphasises that the skill of reading the alethiometer is more valuable when learned as an adut then when acquired as a child - and it would be a strange thing to claim that a second language, learned, was more valuable than a native tongue, acquired.

Another way of looking at it is seeing the alethiometer as a sort of pidgin language. A pidgin, briefly, is the communication system invented by people who have no other way of talking to each other (mix up a lot of people who don't speak each others languages, give them a task to do, and you'll see the beginnings of a pidgin), and Lyra's ability to work it as the example of the natural capacity for language - in essence creolising the language elements of the alethiometer into a proper language, just as the children of slaves turned their parents pidgins into true languages. Its a natural ability of children.

Any thoughts?

[marlboro_tentacles]

I kind of reconciled the inferred meanings associated with the icons on the alethiometer with basic semiotics, i.e. Anchor - hope, seafaring, etc. and with Tarot cards, how the cards themselves mean little on their own, but in conjunction with others form new meanings.

This is not at all similar to the process of dialectic montage in film pioneered by director Sergei Eisenstein.

In his famous political films Oktober and Battleship Potemkin he would, for example, contrast an image of farmers with their scythes raised in the air with a procession of marching soldiers, rifles held aloft - the merging of workers with a synchronised military unit is meant to signify the collective power of the Russian peasantry.

Or, in other words A + B = C.

I'd never heard of Chomsky's aquisition theory before. When was it published? Knowing Pullman, I very much doubt that it's a coincidence that it fits in so well with Lyra and the alethiometer.

I suppose we stop 'aquiring' at puberty, because that's when we reach a kind of saturation point in terms of mental development and our capacity for learning is filled.

Here's an interesting, if slightly off-centre interpretation of this courtesy of Mr. Keenan:

"If you look at the cycles of the moon, it starts as a thin
crescent and then gradually waxes and becomes full; then it
gradually wanes back into another crescent and then is gone.
The moon reflects sunlight like humans reflect information.
We wax and wane and when we become full moons, our ego's
are full. We think we have this knowledge when in fact, the
information we have his pure. And it reflects or shines off of
us, is something we take credit for as though the moon could
take credit for the light it reflects from the sun. We have to
understand that we are ego-less just as the moon is without
light. It and we, are simply reflectors."

link: http://toolshed.down.net/articles/index ... arion.html

[Daniel]

I don't think the alethiometer "gives message in a special language". As the auctioner said, it doesn't have any syntax--no word order, no function words, no inflection, nothing but bare semantics. An innate knowledge of universal grammar doesn't really help you learn when there is no grammar. There also doesn't seem to be enough information in the alethiometer to learn the symbol meanings unless you have an intuitive grasp of its semantics. All in all, I think I'll stick with the plain old "Dust did it" theory.

[Melancholy Man]

Kyrillon wrote:

A pidgin, briefly, is the communication system invented by people who have no other way of talking to each other (mix up a lot of people who don't speak each others languages, give them a task to do, and you'll see the beginnings of a pidgin),

Is the difference between a pidgin and a creole is that the latter has it's own basic grammatical rules, and is more likely to have been invented by malleable children?

In the First Republic I made the point, I think, that changes such as settlement of daemons or loss of ability to read the alethiometer are lost at puberty in the same way that accents tend to settle at that age.

Consider Henry "bomb 'em" Kissenger's retainment of a central European burr whilst his younger brother quickly developed an American accent.

[Kyrillion]

Yes, the way our socio teacher puts it is that 'a creole is a pidgin with children'

I don't think the alethiometer "gives message in a special language". As the auctioner said, it doesn't have any syntax--no word order, no function words, no inflection, nothing but bare semantics. An innate knowledge of universal grammar doesn't really help you learn when there is no grammar. There also doesn't seem to be enough information in the alethiometer to learn the symbol meanings unless you have an intuitive grasp of its semantics.

I phrased it badly... when I said the alethiometer 'speaks' in a special language, I actually meant it provides a special lexis (vocabulary). Obviously this is useless without Lyra's ability to connect the 'words' with her 'grammar', but the two together form a language.

I spose its a bit like the pictograms they've tried to teach chimps to use as language. They've tried to train them to point to symbols to express what they mean. The difference, of course, is that the poor old chimps have no inherent inclination for grammar and do not connect this lexis up into anything we could meaningfully call language.

Its true what you say about function words, but then I don't know it this completely discredits the idea. Taking the example of Finnish, this language has no prepositions, it changes the function of a word by suffixing new bits on. The equivilant in the alethiometer, its way of changing the meaning of the word/symbol is the number of times the hand flickers at the symbol as it goes round. So the second-down meaning of the hourglass might be 'death', but the fifth-down might be 'to die'. If the hand stopped there on the fifth go round you'd know it meant the verb.

The problem with that theory is that all the meanings PP has listed for the symbols are nouns and adjectives as far as I remember.

[hollytamale]

Does anyone believe that an altheiometer could actually work and exist just like the one the Lyra used?

[Enitharmon]

Does anyone believe that an altheiometer could actually work and exist just like the one the Lyra used?

A reasonably skilled instrument maker could make one, that's no problem. Whether it would work or not as described is a moot point. Maybe it depends on what you mean by 'work'. Perhaps if you believe that divination by I-Ching, or Tarot, works then you would believe your alethiometer works too.

It's what I love about the alethiometer, as opposed tom the Knife. It is real and believable, I can imagine my delight in holding one in my hand. The Knife can't ever be more than a concept.

[Daniel]

Its true what you say about function words, but then I don't know it this completely discredits the idea. Taking the example of Finnish, this language has no prepositions, it changes the function of a word by suffixing new bits on. The equivilant in the alethiometer, its way of changing the meaning of the word/symbol is the number of times the hand flickers at the symbol as it goes round. So the second-down meaning of the hourglass might be 'death', but the fifth-down might be 'to die'. If the hand stopped there on the fifth go round you'd know it meant the verb.

You may be correct that Finnish has no prepositions, but it definitely has postpositions :P. It does have case endings for a lot of theta-roles and several common locations ("in", "within", "to", "from"...), but that would get quite unwieldy if it had to express everything that p-positions do.

I didn't get the impression that the alethiometer cared about parts of speech. I always thought that a single meaning "death" could also stand for "dead", "to die", and other expressions of the same idea. I guess it'd be a little bit like Lojban: all you have are predicates that assert something about some other things--except you wouldn't be able to tell which symbol was supposed to be the predicate and which were its objects, or which roles each object filled.

[The Unsettled One]

Well the I-Ching has been known to work properly so why shouldn't an alethiometer? All you need to know is how.
For some info on the I-Ching go here

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/practica ... at_is.html

[marlboro_tentacles]

Think about the physics involved in actually making one. Then think about how it couldn't work.

[Enitharmon]

Think about the physics involved in actually making one. Then think about how it couldn't work.

I'm sorry? What physics? There's nothing there that isn't part of clock- or compass-making. Three hands turned to fixed prositions by knurled knobs via a system of gearing, a pointer freely suspended? Where's the problem?

[The Unsettled One]

You took the words right out of my mouth, oh mighty one.

[Rueful Rabbit]

Think about the physics involved in actually making one. Then think about how it couldn't work.

I'm sorry? What physics? There's nothing there that isn't part of clock- or compass-making. Three hands turned to fixed prositions by knurled knobs via a system of gearing, a pointer freely suspended? Where's the problem?

If they were so easy to make, why were alethiometers so rare? I assumed there was some sort of intricate internal mechanism, which interacted with the mind of the user, and made the pointer move.

[The Unsettled One]

Because they were made out of solid gold and the knowledge to make them was lost. PP said it somewhere.

[Enitharmon]

If they were so easy to make, why were alethiometers so rare? I assumed there was some sort of intricate internal mechanism, which interacted with the mind of the user, and made the pointer move.

They didn't do what they were intended to do. They were made for astrological divination as an experiment, to respond to the idea ofMars in the same way that a compass responds to the idea of North. They fell into disuse until the Magisterium rather hypocritically took an interest.

I can't remember if it was Father Coram or Lord Asriel who explains this - perhaps somebody could come up with a reference?

There's no more need for an intricate mechanism than there is for such a mechanism to guide the yarrow stalks in the I-Ching

[The Unsettled One]

The I-ching is simple, it's just getting your hands on the book of changes and understanding the meanings fully, which is the same matte as reading the alethiometer.

[Face]

It seems to me that the ability of the object itself to tell the truth is irrelevant, although it is more than likely that it is unable to, i'd say the aletheiometer is perhaps some kind of physical medium chosen by dust to interact with people, ie Lyra. This would also mean that the specific meaning of the symbol after each revolution of the pointer is not as important, as she is directly interacting with the dust. The question is, i guess, why is it that children, Lyra in particular, are able to read the alethiometer whereas alduts have to spend their _entire_ life learning from books to have what is probably a fraction of the ability? Perhaps adults are required to take heed of the complicated semantics whereas children have a bypass mechanism.

[Enitharmon]

I've found the quote - it was Martin Lanselius who explains. (The italics are mine)

"They are said to originate in the city of Prague," said the Consul. "The scholar who invented the first alethjometer wsa apparently trying to discover a way of measuring the influences of the planets, according to the ideas of astrology. He intended to make a device that would respond to the idea of Mars or Venus as a compass responds to the idea of North. In that he failed, but the mechanism he invented was clearly responding to something, even if no one knew what it was."

And a few lines later

"[...] But, you know, they haven't been used seriously for two centuries or so."

Northern Lights, p 173

[Will]

Makes you wonder why they were suddenly being used again. Could fit in to the time period that Lyra's world is at, ie, they'd have had the century of peace in Europe that we did - and so no need for alethiometers since, as was shown at Trollesund, they're often used to gather details about war movements.

I wouldn't have thought that would stop the Church using them, though. Maybe he was mistaken.

[Daniel]

I don't think the Magesterium would have let people know that it was still using them. As more of the alethiometers fell into their hands, they would appear to be used less and less.

Also, the alethiometer can't just be some clockwork: the fourth hand has to be random. It can't be so deterministic that its movement would be predictable. It also probably needs to be specifically sensitive to Dust, too, or else Dust wouldn't be able to control it very effectively. I also think the fourth hand was made from the same alloy as the guillotine and the edge of the Knife, and that would be pretty hard to reverse-engineer.