Preprint
Article

On the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Innateness Hypothesis and Semiotics

This version is not peer-reviewed.

Submitted:

28 August 2024

Posted:

28 August 2024

You are already at the latest version

Abstract
This article considers a different application of similar methods that have been used to reject the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and expounds the idea as a member of the cumulative proof against the theory. Rather than to explicitly include models of generative grammars, this model instead does not violate the ideas of Optimality Theory – and therein it preserves such qualities as freedom of analysis while retaining the idea of the pertinent constraints. However, it is suggestive of momentary disagreements with the Innateness Hypothesis.
Keywords: 
Subject: 
Social Sciences  -   Language and Linguistics

1. Introduction

In characterising the idea that “language is deterministic of human thought” (Cibelli, et al., 2016), we must accept the idea that different languages impose a set of distinct boundaries on the minds that happen to be engaged with their thought – perhaps different languages suggest a variable degree to which the quantity of boundaries may be set.
It may be assumed as well that this idea of human thought is purely to the conceivability of information that one can relate to – of course, while we simultaneously assume that everyone has the same brain and therefore the same faculty for that conceivability, we can be convinced that the language that one has assumed as their own must possess underlying restrictions that relate to specific boundaries on one’s conceivability.
If we should assume that all languages are developmental – but where that there is no change to the syntax – and we can import conceptual ideas in the form of words (or lexemes), therefore the grammar must be at fault in that it cannot extend itself to fulfill its developmental capacity and “catch-up” with other languages (which is possible because it has been observed previously that the intellectual capacity attached to each language is different).
It is important for this text to describe what it means by an “intrinsic structure”. Very simply, in order to distinguish between faculties of concept that are representative in words and the assumed idea of a divergence in intelligent faculty, we assume that the progression from cognitive to language forms relies on necessities that are bounded on equal cognitively.

2.1. Method

To preface this account on a proven account that has already been made in several proofs [], it is intended to be made on account of, simply and generally, a compounding proof from another faculty of linguistics.
It is proposed when a language is firstly and primitively conceived, it must include: firstly, an instantaneous grammar (which I describe as where substantives are allocated their own intrinsic structures, such that the idea of a tree may suggest itself as stationary and providing of life), and secondly, a frame for grammatical necessity that is derived from the instantaneous frame – here, it is important to note that some languages include significant, divergent capabilities from others (such as Mandarin’s progressive aspect or Ancient Greek and Classical Sanskrit’s pervasive medio-passive instead of the passive), but that these are hence defined as conventions instead of necessities because they inhabit a more descriptive, or adjectival role rather than one that fulfills a contrary intrinsic structure to other grammars (as is expected, this is contrary to the Innateness Hypothesis (Thomas, 2002). For added detail, the transformation between the instantaneous grammar and the secondary, necessitated grammar is not one made by the need to express oneself, but rather another descriptive (merely adjectival – i.e., does not change the syntax) faculty that is placed under the conceptual frame.
To stress the faculty that this theory is describing, it must be understood that the reverence paid towards native speakers (Cowie, 1999) cannot suppose that they themselves have a comprehensive knowledge of their language, but rather a consonance with reciprocated ideas – it is therefore considered that the unity of the faculty of concept (inhabited by all) is isolated from the productive language and exists as its own cognitive medium.

2.2. Discussion

The purpose of this discussion section is to describe the future (however hypothetical and subject to conjecture they may be) prospects of the ideas that are pronounced in this article. Many of them have been written that they describe topics of a physical hypothesis, and it is recognised that the nature of these views can behold somewhat divergent interpretations to the current normality, but it is such which are believed to be most proper to the principles of the article.
The fault made in this article (Boroditsky, et al., 2002) is to attribute event perception to the singular capacity of individual words rather than to theorise that the “universality” holds a merely descriptive faculty from the cognizant frame.

3.1. An Alternative Conception

With respect to the idea that all grammars convey their own equality – and that syntax does not exist without the support of the characters (lexemes, morphemes, and et cetera – which are hence, collectively described as “words”), it can therefore be suggested that the only way in which a language (mind that idea) can be attested to pertain to being conceptually bounded is via a restriction of syntactic faculties. We may also assume that what does define a language – owing to the design that has been consistent for languages – means that the idea of the language that is being pursued is purely and only representative (however, it is proposed that the grammar of a language is the only form necessary of language because it fulfills all mental faculties where constructive language is apparent). In this sense, it can be followed that either connective links (Agel, et al., 2003) between words or the words themselves must be voided in order to create a proper disparity between the merely representative language and the language of our own. Here, we can only characterise languages in the words that are available – and there, concepts are available in word form alone, which is where they can construct different scales of concepts for different languages in assuming that the scale of words determines its capabilities.
In sum, the expression of a language without its links between words fulfills an appropriation of language that fails to include syntactic relationships – as mentioned previously, it is causal to semiotic necessity.

4.1. Conclusion and Significance

In sum, this article has considered the proposition that the only meaningful member of language is the grammar that forms it, that the origin of language can be described in a two-step process of acquisition that suggests a reliance on the nature of semiotics and the supremacy of the consciousness. It introduces a conceptual language without links.
Given the consistency of criticisms that have been directed towards alternative theories, it can be expected that the introduction of this semiotic method of discernment to the study of linguistics may serve either as an example of its failure, or as a competitive interpretation model of linguistic apprehension.

References

  1. Ágel, V.; Eichinger, L.M.; Eroms, H.W.; Hellwig, P.; Heringer, H.J.; Lobin, H. (Eds.) Dependenz und Valenz:Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung [Dependency and Valency:An International Handbook of Contemporary Research] (in German). Retrieved 24 August 2012; de Gruyter: Berlin, 24 August 2003; ISBN 978-3110141900. [Google Scholar]
  2. Boroditsky, L.; Ham, W.; Ramscar, M. What is universal in event perception? Comparing English & Indonesian speakers. In Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society; Gray, W.D., Schunn, C.D., Eds.; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, 2002. [Google Scholar]
  3. Cibelli, E.; Xu, Y.; Austerweil, J.L.; Griffiths, T.L.; Regier, T. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Probabilistic Inference: Evidence from the Domain of Color. PLoS ONE 2016, 11, e0158725. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  4. Cowie, F. What’s Within? Nativism Reconsidered; Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999. [Google Scholar]
  5. Thomas, M. Development of the Concept of ‘the Poverty of the Stimulus’. Linguistic Review 2002, 19, 51–71. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
Alerts
Prerpints.org logo

Preprints.org is a free preprint server supported by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland.

Subscribe

© 2025 MDPI (Basel, Switzerland) unless otherwise stated