Regarding Glen Gordon's reply to Andrew Smith:
> Well, Mr. Economics Person, your idea is pretty and everything in a
> make-believe world but it'll never be reality no matter how hard we wish
> upon a star because the world just isn't that predictable and ordered.
> Sometimes the equations don't even work for economics let alone linguistics.
Equations are simply one way to slice the pie and to apply a
mathematical model to the study of linguistics certainly would take
language out of the humanist world and place it smack dab into the world
of science. Perhaps parts of speech can be assigned numbers as some of
the structural linguists (e.g. Neil Postman) did way back in the 60s.
Then in writing we could convert our sentences to numerical speech
patterns and an artificial intelligence will do the communication for
us. Sounds like the wave of the future.
Too bad our only options are Blue Chip and Nasdaq stocks, huh? But not
to worry, the tide rises and the tide falls.
Gerry