2 Meanings and information units
We know from physics that quantity is a universal characteristic of the real world. However, quantity could not be perceived without another universal characteristic, which is the property to be substituted and which we will call electivity . Let us show their mutual need by a simple example of perceiving a spatial object. One can estimate an object’s size, that is, its quantitative value as its spatial extension, thanks to its boundaries in space11Here we leave aside that the perceived size of objects depends on a number of factors. See, however, Tal Makovski (2017), “investigating how the boundaries of an object and, particularly, the absence of these boundaries, impact its size perception”. (whether they are its external line, its color, matter, texture, form or structure). The mutual need of an extension and boundaries consists in that an extension doesn’t exist without boundaries, as well as boundaries don’t exist without extension. But their characteristics are different: When determining an object’s size in this way, we assume that quantity has a property which distinguishes it from what we call electivity. An extension, characterized by quantity, has the property to be accumulated: The smaller is included in the larger. A boundary (we consider it ideal, that is, without extension), which separates two extensions, on the contrary, can only be substituted by another one and so electivity has the property to be substituted.
Information refers to that from which it is an abstraction sent. Spatial objects are displayed in language by concrete noun meanings, which contain information transmitted by these objects. So noun meanings refer to objects. Quantity observed in spatial objects can also be displayed in language, but the only quantity abstraction is the state of being included, which is what refers to the quantity. Unlike meaning, the abstract state of being included cannot be conscious. In what follows, we will show that this state is displayed in an operational structure, which accompanies the meaning in speech. Actually, in contrast to quantity, abstract state of being included characterizes neither an individual object nor a meaning. A spatial object, as we have shown above, is characterized not only by quantity, but also by electivity. Electivity is also an abstract concept. Electivity is referred to by its state of being substituted, which is displayed in an operational structure too.
The concepts of inclusion and substitution are naturally derived from two simple operations in which the derivative element is formed from the initial one in such a way that the difference between inclusion and substitution is determined in the absence of any content for the elements, i.e., without reference to outside objects and not due to the content of the elements themselves (in order not to “multiply entities without necessity”). The difference created in this way is provided by the fact that the operations are formed by elements determined by the operations themselves. We do not know in what form and at what stage of human genesis these operations exist and whether they exist materially at all. But the structures formed by these operations exhaustively explain the defining characteristics of the three universal word classes, in relation to which they act as the same kind of abstraction as inclusion and substitution in relation to quantity and electivity, respectively. As for the relationship between quantity and electivity that exists in the real world, it is displayed in the combining of operations, i.e., in that they are carried out coupled. So, there are aquantitative and an elective operation.
The quantitative operation introduces a relationq 0 ˂ Q , where q 0(initial element) is a quantity being part of the quantityQ 22One can see quantity determined as above in brain. Signals perceived by our five major senses represent object’s quantifiable parameters – bright or dim light of a particular colour, loud or soft sound of a particular pitch, strong or not strong touch, strong or weak smell, intense or poorly perceived taste. Quantitative parameters are integrated in a process of recognition – as a shape and colour of the object, as a cumulative effect caused by stimulation of olfactory receptors, etc. (derivative element). We don’t use the symbol ˂ as mathematics to mark that one number is less than another. It means here that the quantity Q has q 0 as its accumulated part. The elective operation performs a substitutione 0 → E , where the initial elemente 0 is a substituted element, E , a substituting derivative one. The elements brought out from the operations become static and constitute bits of non-semantic information. We will call these elements operational states and the combination of the operational states accompanying a semantic information in speech, operational information . The operational states can be used in semantic information while remaining coupled or separately (ceasing to be unobservable, see further). So, the quantity operation means that the initial quantitative stateq 0 is included in the including derivative quantitative state Q 33The terms “includes, including” and “is included” are chosen because they express the gist of respective operational relations and are in no way related to set theory. and the electivity operation means that the initial elective state e 0 is substituted by the substituting derivative elective state E . If the initial states of both operations are determined by the opposition of a static element to to the operation as a process, the derivative states, in addition, are characterized by a different relation to the initial states. If the derivative quantitative state can be determined as including, the initial state remains undetermined in the operation. Outside the operation, it always accompanies the derivative state and that’s what makes it involved in quantity. Similarly, if the derivative elective state can be determined as substituting, the initial state remains undetermined. Outside the operation, it has no quantitative characteristic and on this basis is defined as elective.
The starting point in analyzing the meaning of a sentence is the meanings of the words that make up the sentence. The available means of describing linguistic meanings, in particular by means of componential analysis, semantic decomposition or through their definition, disintegrate the meanings via other whole meanings to reveal their structure (when we say “whole”, we mean that any meaning is expressed by a separate word). But are there other entities in speech besides meanings that are related to them and responsible for their relationship in a sentence?
Aphasia demonstrates that meaning and its form diverge in certain circumstances. Dronkers and Baldo (2009: 343) describe patients with anomic aphasia as follows:
When searching for a word, some patients with anomic aphasia paraphrase using words that they can easily retrieve. For instance, a patient shown a drawing of a pair of tongs said “You pick up things with it.” Such circumlocutions demonstrate that patients with anomic aphasia have lost neither conceptual understanding nor the ability to build coherent sentences and phrases. Whereas circumlocutions may be a characteristic feature of the speech of some patients with anomic aphasia, the main characteristic displayed by other patients may be periods of slow and halting speech as they search for the correct word. For instance, when shown a picture, a patient might say, “It’s a, ummm, uhhh, a, a, a … I know what it is, it’s a … Aww hell, it’s there but I just can’t get it.”
The message of the examples with aphasia is that the patients possessing the concept of the thing can’t remember the word whose meaning enables naming.
Now, let’s imagine that a word is omitted (or not heard), but we can, however, understand the sentence. Its understanding is possible if we turn to a meaning which is to a greater or lesser extent determined by the sentence or the context so that the missing word may not exist at all or, if it does, can be selected by its meaning. For example, to understand the sentence Up the <…>, on the second floor , we turn to the meaning ʻsomething we can climb to get on the second floorʼ or to more specific meanings, which can be then expressed by the words stairs, ladder, tree , etc. W. Chafe (2018: 28) argues: “Because the thought-sound association is such a pervasive aspect of daily experience, it can be surprisingly difficult for anyone who is old enough to speak to separate the two. … I recently had occasion to think over well-known film director whose name … was briefly inhibited. … I was conscious of everything about him except his name. It wasn’t long before the sound Alfred Hitchcockfound its way back to my consciousness, but while it was absent the thought-sound association lacked its bottom half. … Separating a thought from a sound can be experienced in the opposite direction in rote learning.” It is also known that polysemy is explained by the ability of a linguistic sign to accumulate more than one meaning under one form. But a word polysemous in dictionary loses its polysemy (or actualizes double meaning) in speech.
All this suggests that in comprehending the speech, the sound word becomes unnecessary for the addressee, and the addressee operates only with meanings that create a semantic whole. In other words, in meaningful speech, the meaning is separated from the phonetic word. We will call meanings in speech separated from signs information units . The information units get rid of the signs to become an informational continuum, a formulated thought.