Dear Colleagues,
Based on a Pubmed search it looks like there have not been too many publications on the organization of nouns versus adjectives in the brain. If you have conducted or are familiar with studies investigating the two language aspects in either healthy or aphasic populations, please kindly share them with me.
Thank you so much.
Pleasant regards,
Monika
Dear Monika,
I quote here the few pages pages that may be of interest to you of a book published in 1999, now available in eBook formats where I synthesize conclusions that can be reached regarding the function of adjective and nouns in the neocortex verbal areas, that may add to the references provided by Joachim.
They are planned to be part of a paper to be issued sometime coming winter or spring:
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What is an Adjective?
The word “adjective” is the name given to the static characteristics of objects, which are the qualities that we associate with objects, that is, colors, shapes... white, black, round, long, tall, small, etc.
Within the neurolinguistic context that we are exploring, adjectives are, for all intents and purposes, the most important elements of all existing languages since they directly name the non verbal characteristics. They thus constitute the lowest level of the hierarchical infrastructure of links of our neurolinguistic model of reality. In other words, they are the "bridge" between the thinking mode by words association and the thinking mode by images association.
They also describe the characteristics of abstract concepts that also are non verbal, and therefore constitute the lowest level of interconnection between the neurolinguistic model and the virtual world of abstract concepts.
It is also from adjectives that a great number of verbs and adverbs are derived, and for good cause, since these verbs and adverbs exist only to allow us to think and speak about these characteristics.
When we describe something, we metaphorically bring out the list of its qualities, meaning the list of characteristics which are specific to it and which allow us to distinguish it from all other things.
Grammatically speaking, an adjective is defined as a word that is joined to a noun to express a quality of the being or object named.
Adjectival Locutions
When we are forced to use many words instead of only one to describe a characteristic, we automatically use what linguists call a "locution".
At the grammatical level, an adjectival locution can be defined as a group of words equivalent to an adjective. This includes locutions that usage has standardized as well as adjectival locutions that we could make on the spur of the moment when we think of the subtleties of characteristics of objects or of abstract concepts that we are "observing".
The later type is very important, because we do not necessary always have at our disposal the exact word which should be used to describe something which we have never thought about previously, or even to describe something that we already know, but the exact word for which momentarily escapes us.
Combinations of words that we assemble "on the fly", so to speak, to describe shades of meaning which we think of for the first time often are our only tool to even think about these particular subtleties as we are trying to be a little more specific about some aspect of what we are describing.
We consequently use adjectival locutions each time that existing adjectives do not allow us to clearly describe a particular subtlety of a characteristic that we observe and want to express.
What is a Name?
We have previously talked about the descriptions of characteristics of objects, and of lists of "qualities" of objects. A "name" simply is the "title" of such a list.
A name is the word which we use to identify, to "name", the list of characteristics that belongs to the set of characteristics that we associate with an object, an action, a feeling, a quality, an idea, an abstract concept, etc..., and that allows us to identify it. In short, anything that we care to think about.
Consequently, any word can become a name as soon as we attempt to understand the idea that is expressed by this word, that is, as soon as we attempt to identify the set of characteristics that we have associated to it. For mutual intelligibility in communications, of course, the idea expressed by a word is deemed to usually match the definition given in dictionaries.
However, what we must understand of the idea expressed by a name, in relation to the context of the moment, always depends on the specific list of static and dynamic characteristics that become attached to that name in the context within which it is used.
The extent of the meaning of a name strictly depends on the context in which it is used as we speak, write or even when simply thinking. Consequently, no matter what dictionaries may say, the same words used in exactly the same manner, but in different contexts, may mean entirely different things, which could have absolutely nothing to do with the formal meaning of the words. The overall context of their use always determines the precise meaning of words, at the moment of their use.
No “Nomial” Locutions
We have seen that for adjectives, there exists adjectival locutions, and we will see that for other important types of words, such as verbs and adverbs, there also exists locutions. So why shouldn't there exist locutions for names?
What is the definition of a word, in fact, if not the description of that word? We could even go so far as to say that a word is the summary of its own definition. When we think of a new concept, or a new shade of meaning, or of a specific subtlety of a characteristic of an object, there may not even exist a name that could directly describe what we want to emphasize.
In these cases, we have no choice but to think of it using the "definition", so to speak. A striking example of this occurs regarding the expression "indexation infrastructure associative by inclusion", which we could maybe now simplify by naming it “neurolinguistic structure”.
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Abstracted from "The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence": https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/156882
Hope this helps.
Best Regards
Dear Joachim,
Thank you very much for your reply as well as the links, especially the paper on adjectives vs. nouns. I was not familiar with it. As you know, there have been quite a lot of studies on nouns and verbs but only a few on adjectives vs. nouns. I appreciate your help.
Best wishes,
Monika
Dear Monika,
I quote here the few pages pages that may be of interest to you of a book published in 1999, now available in eBook formats where I synthesize conclusions that can be reached regarding the function of adjective and nouns in the neocortex verbal areas, that may add to the references provided by Joachim.
They are planned to be part of a paper to be issued sometime coming winter or spring:
------------------------------------------------------------------
What is an Adjective?
The word “adjective” is the name given to the static characteristics of objects, which are the qualities that we associate with objects, that is, colors, shapes... white, black, round, long, tall, small, etc.
Within the neurolinguistic context that we are exploring, adjectives are, for all intents and purposes, the most important elements of all existing languages since they directly name the non verbal characteristics. They thus constitute the lowest level of the hierarchical infrastructure of links of our neurolinguistic model of reality. In other words, they are the "bridge" between the thinking mode by words association and the thinking mode by images association.
They also describe the characteristics of abstract concepts that also are non verbal, and therefore constitute the lowest level of interconnection between the neurolinguistic model and the virtual world of abstract concepts.
It is also from adjectives that a great number of verbs and adverbs are derived, and for good cause, since these verbs and adverbs exist only to allow us to think and speak about these characteristics.
When we describe something, we metaphorically bring out the list of its qualities, meaning the list of characteristics which are specific to it and which allow us to distinguish it from all other things.
Grammatically speaking, an adjective is defined as a word that is joined to a noun to express a quality of the being or object named.
Adjectival Locutions
When we are forced to use many words instead of only one to describe a characteristic, we automatically use what linguists call a "locution".
At the grammatical level, an adjectival locution can be defined as a group of words equivalent to an adjective. This includes locutions that usage has standardized as well as adjectival locutions that we could make on the spur of the moment when we think of the subtleties of characteristics of objects or of abstract concepts that we are "observing".
The later type is very important, because we do not necessary always have at our disposal the exact word which should be used to describe something which we have never thought about previously, or even to describe something that we already know, but the exact word for which momentarily escapes us.
Combinations of words that we assemble "on the fly", so to speak, to describe shades of meaning which we think of for the first time often are our only tool to even think about these particular subtleties as we are trying to be a little more specific about some aspect of what we are describing.
We consequently use adjectival locutions each time that existing adjectives do not allow us to clearly describe a particular subtlety of a characteristic that we observe and want to express.
What is a Name?
We have previously talked about the descriptions of characteristics of objects, and of lists of "qualities" of objects. A "name" simply is the "title" of such a list.
A name is the word which we use to identify, to "name", the list of characteristics that belongs to the set of characteristics that we associate with an object, an action, a feeling, a quality, an idea, an abstract concept, etc..., and that allows us to identify it. In short, anything that we care to think about.
Consequently, any word can become a name as soon as we attempt to understand the idea that is expressed by this word, that is, as soon as we attempt to identify the set of characteristics that we have associated to it. For mutual intelligibility in communications, of course, the idea expressed by a word is deemed to usually match the definition given in dictionaries.
However, what we must understand of the idea expressed by a name, in relation to the context of the moment, always depends on the specific list of static and dynamic characteristics that become attached to that name in the context within which it is used.
The extent of the meaning of a name strictly depends on the context in which it is used as we speak, write or even when simply thinking. Consequently, no matter what dictionaries may say, the same words used in exactly the same manner, but in different contexts, may mean entirely different things, which could have absolutely nothing to do with the formal meaning of the words. The overall context of their use always determines the precise meaning of words, at the moment of their use.
No “Nomial” Locutions
We have seen that for adjectives, there exists adjectival locutions, and we will see that for other important types of words, such as verbs and adverbs, there also exists locutions. So why shouldn't there exist locutions for names?
What is the definition of a word, in fact, if not the description of that word? We could even go so far as to say that a word is the summary of its own definition. When we think of a new concept, or a new shade of meaning, or of a specific subtlety of a characteristic of an object, there may not even exist a name that could directly describe what we want to emphasize.
In these cases, we have no choice but to think of it using the "definition", so to speak. A striking example of this occurs regarding the expression "indexation infrastructure associative by inclusion", which we could maybe now simplify by naming it “neurolinguistic structure”.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstracted from "The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence": https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/156882
Hope this helps.
Best Regards
Dear Andre:
How did you go from systems analysis to linguistics to basic physics?
Dear Herb,
Interesting question.
Actually, I went from chanced initial neocortex study in my early 20's from Chauchard's work out of curiosity, to discovering related artificial neural networks operation as I specialized in computer systems analysis and data processing to earn a living, to then integrating Hebb's understanding of neural network characteristics of the neocortex, to full understanding of the function of language in conceptual thinking, via the discoveries of Pavlov, Chauchard and Korzybski, all of this out of curiosity and urge to simply understand.
Candidly thinking that this was also understood and was being implemented in the community to help education, I did not then realize that most of this research had been neglected and left on the wayside. I simply lived my life until in the mid 1990's, when I suddenly realized that nobody knew about this anymore in the formal community.
To try to draw attention back to this critically important research, I thought it a good idea to first try drawing attention with something more tangible. I thought that trying to trace a clear path through the chaos that fundamental physics had become by means of using the reasoning method by sets correlations natural to the neocortex, which is very similar to Newton's own empirical scientific method, but allows any number of verified premises to be used in each set to be examined could bring proof of the reality and validity of unhindered neocortex operation to correctly resolve any issue in our attempts to correctly understand objective reality.
Time will tell if this will bear fruits.
In summary, I actually went from neocortex operation mechanics analysis, to intimately related neurolinguistics to basic physics, the first two being intimately interlinked, and the third one being meant as a means to draw attention, and in so doing help ultimately draw attention to the relation between the first two resulting in conceptual thinking, so that the community eventually considers adapting teaching methods to account for the fact.
Best Regards
André
Dear Andre:
Many thanks, I will send you a long personal summary of my life via the RG message system, as I am paranoid about public info on the web.
Still doing original physics research (see my UET series on Academia.edu) as well as moving onto biology (after my beloved wife of 50 years died of pancreatic cancer in 2016). Now very interested in memory (my current essay).
So, can you suggest where Associative Memory occurs in the human brain and how it might happen?
Dear Herb,
I'll be expecting your summary.
I truly sympathize for your huge loss. Can't even imagine the void.
Now to what I know about associative memory. Difficult to give more than a rather succinct summary of what I understand about this in such a thread, but complete references are available for the details.
Memories are apparently stored as more or less extensive patterns (sets) of synapses that are sort of "set" to stable higher than median "strength" in various parts of the non-verbal hemisphere of the brain. I know that their strength tends to diminish with time, but the more often they are "visited" by thinking about them, the more they strenghten. This is what explains that we can remember stuff our whole life, or altenately progressively forget stuff as time goes by.
We become able to conceptually associate these memories by means of the language (or languages, if we learn many) that become established in the other hemisphere as we grow up from infancy on and that we use to think (and accessorily to speak and write) about them.
The human neocortex is endowed with two cerebral areas that no other living species possess.They are the Broca area and the Wernicke area, mainly, that are specialized to structure our use of language, and that apparently reached full development only in the Neanderthal and us the Homo Sapiens.
The broca area is made of synaptic cerebral structures created by the kinesthetic excitation induced by the use of the speech organs that genetically progressively developed in the humanoid lineage in parallel with the development of the wernicke area and with the ability to articulate sounds with the speech organs.
On its part, the wernicke area connects each word whose cerebral spoken synaptic pattern is stored in the broca area with the visual synaptic pattern of the same word (if we learned how to read), its written synaptic pattern (if we learned to write), and its auditory synaptic pattern that are stored in various other areas of the verbal hemisphere and finally to potentially all of the non-verbal synaptic memory patterns related in the past to this word and that are stored in the other hemisphere of the brain (the non-verbal hemisphere).
Memories association is much more complex and powerful that this very simple description seems to hint at. The detail of association by context is related to the generalization ability that language provides.
For more on the origin of these discoveries, I can only refer you to Pavlov, who made the initial discovery of the function of language in supporting conceptual thinking, and particularly Chauchard who wrote many books on this issue. Unfortunately, Pavlov work post 1928 is available only in German to my knowledge, and Chauchard is available only in French if even available nowadays. I chanced upon their research when I was young in the 1960-70's (Pavlov only through what Chauchard mentioned at first). But the core of what they found is described with original discoverers' quotes and summarized in 3 papers I mention below.
There is a very good book covering much of the findings about the human brain by neurophysiologist and Nobel prize winner John C. Eccles (1989) "Evolution of the Brain and Creation of the Self" that reveals quite a bit of information on the progressive development of the human brain with respect to other mammals, with numerous references to formally published papers.
https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Brain-Creation-John-Eccles/dp/0415032245
This book is in English, and if interested to the point of going to the formal sources, the numerous references to formal research and books that it gives should provide you with the information you need.
I tried to summarize most of this research in 3 papers published in 2016 and 2017 with full references to initial discoverers' sources, which synthesize the content of books I wrote end of the 1990's beginning of the 2000's:
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/comprehension-process-overview-2155-6180-1000317.pdf
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/intelligence-and-early-mastery-of-the-reading-skill-2155-6180-1000327.pdf
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/on-the-relation-between-the-comprehension-ability-and-the-neocortexverbal-areas-2155-6180-1000331.pdf
There remains one paper for me to abstract from these books that will explain the generalization ability that use of language provides.
It took me a long time to understand all of this, so if you decide to dig in, don't be surprised if all does not become clear at the first once over. Some of what they explained I had to re-read I can't even count how many times before I related, so I suspect this would be the same for some of what I wrote.
Best Regards
André
Thanks, Andre - hugely helpful; I will follow up with the links & refs.
Much appreciated your sympathy: my life is empty now and I only plan to keep going until I finish my research projects (ETA = 2023) then I will EXIT.
As explained in the attached.
Dear Herb,
Thanks for the .pdf on AS. Quite informative and appreciated.
"The Accountant" happens to be one of my favs also, specifically because it refocuses me to thinking about the correlation process and people's ability to concentrate.
I have it on our cable tv's recorder and enjoy replaying it occasionally.
Specifically regarding "intuition", you will find in the 2 paragraphs before last of the second column of page 13 of the paper titled "On the Relation between the Comprehension Ability and the Neocortex Verbal Areas" the actual description of what the actual neocortex mechanics of intuition is.
So it is absolutely no surprise to me that AS people can display such apparently surprising deductive abilities since one of their characteristics is this ability to reach such high levels of concentration.
Best Regards
André
Dear André:
Such a pleasure to communicate with you as you are so knowledgeable and helpful.
However, can you add an explicit link here to the paper titled "On the Relation between the Comprehension Ability and the Neocortex Verbal Areas" so that I can follow up on the actual description of what the actual neocortex mechanics of intuition is.
Thanks, again.
Herb
Dear Herb,
Thanks for the appreciation. But really, even if I am at ease with my own specialty, I am sorely lacking in other directions, I assure you.
Sorry for the mishap. Here is the link:
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/on-the-relation-between-the-comprehension-ability-and-the-neocortexverbal-areas-2155-6180-1000331.pdf
Best Regards
André
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