In the Beginning was Information

The words of a language are linked together in sentences according tofixed rules. These rules (grammar) prevent the construction of chaoticword jumbles, and provide languages with practically unlimited ways ofexpression. Every sentence is a sequence of morphemes, but not everysequence of morphemes makes up a sentence. The rules of grammardetermine the way in which morphemes and words should be combined toexpress a certain meaning, and syntactical rules (syntax = construction ofsentences) determine which word combinations form acceptable sentencesand which combinations are unacceptable for the language involved. Languageexpressions have a definite meaning in the sense that the membersof a given language community have allocated their meaning by commonagreement (convention).Semantics describe all possible conceptual meanings or structures whichcan be expressed in the form of sentences. It does not only involve generalmeanings and concepts of words, groups of words, and sentences, but alsothe relationships between these meanings and reality, the so-called referentialrelationships.In spite of the large number and variety of languages, there are manyremarkable common properties:1. Wherever there are people, the gift of language is evident.2. Linguistically seen, there are no “primitive” languages. Every languagehas its own complexities and its own strengths and weaknessesaccording to the relevant semantics.3. Although the relationships between sounds and the meanings of languageelements are arbitrary, they nevertheless are fixed by the conventionsof the language.4. The human vocal organs are able to produce about 600 differentsounds, but any one language uses only a specific selection of thesesounds. The number of different sounds lies somewhere between 15and 85 for a given language, and these sounds are combined to formwords (elements which convey meanings). In their turn the words canbe used to form an unlimited number of possible sentences.5. Every language possesses its own unique grammatical structurewhich describes the rules for forming words and sentences within thatlanguage.6. Every spoken language comprises a limited number of sound elementswhich can be classified in various ways. A universal distinction,valid for all languages, is that between consonants and vowels.7. All languages have comparable grammatical categories, like nouns,verbs, and numerals.8. Some semantic units like feminine, masculine, and human being arecommon to all languages.208