Some words on the semantics of the poetic functions of TEQ

Some words on the semantics of the poetic functions of TEQ

John Bjarne Grover

After I had completed my MA studies in the spring 1992, I was unemployed for two and a half year untill (as described in my novel "The Dreamer" - where it is the turning point) I got a PhD stipend in Bergen where I worked 1995-1998. The application of 1994 which was accepted in the spring 1995 was called "Probabilistic speech grammar" and aimed at continueing the results from my MA thesis "A model for a non-discrete grammar". It was natural to try and model the grammar on natural speech data - but I quickly came to realize that although sheer data analysis of speech in principle (and not unexpectedly) could come to bring to surface definitions of acoustic elements that could serve to make the modelling reach an interesting level of relevance, it could of course never make for the semantic side of the assumed submorphemic signification in speech.

The question would rather have been: Is it possible to find such semantic units of signification on a submorphemic level for a probabilistic speech grammar - or would it be just a waste of time? The PhD dissertation which I wrote in 1995-1997 (volume 3 - 'A waist of time') contained the material which was available for reaching a conclusion as to this essential question - and I concluded that it was probable that such basic significational elements would exist. This is summed up in part 5 ('A waist of time' pages 583-612 - the first 2-3 pages - up to p.586) whereafter I also outline how an 'arbitrary sentential sign' will have its semantics calibrated on the interface between collective and subjective knowledge/consciousness and to which I also very briefly give a rough sketch of what such a grammar could come to look like - if one day one could come to find the semantic definitions. The optimistic conclusion on the dissertation was that such definitions probably could come to be found - but it would have been a mere shot in the dark to try and reach them at that time.

In part 4 I define a project (in an application) for the work needed for finding these.

That is what I have been doing in the 25 years since then - and it is only today that I can say that it probably has been proven that such definitions can be made - and it is likely that my work since then will give the basis for these definitions. As outlined in this overview of the work I have done in the 25 years since then, the 5 parts of the PhD dissertation give the theoretic basis for the following poetic studies:

Book 1 = The Endmorgan Quartet (mainly inner poetic articulations)
Book 2 = the blue metre ('POLAKK English Bloggi')
Book 3 = the red metre ('My mention e Anna')
Book 4 = the yellow metre ('Der Dornenstrauch', 'SNEEFT COEIL')
Book 5 = the white metre ('Stillhetens åndedrag', 'Rosens triangel')

The conclusion is that the metres are 'reflexes of the reflexes' of TEQ, or 'revelations of the revelations', and thereby in theory could come to approximate a phrase structure level (unlimited left- and righthand parantheses). The proof that the definitions of TEQ probably are valid - the 16 local and global poetic functions contained in the 16 books - is found in this study which seems to converge on the conclusion that very many artists of some rank in the history of art seem to have been occupied with one and only one poetic function. If this should come to be the eventual conclusion, it would mean that the poetic definitions which could not be articulated in 1997 now probably can - since the consistency with which artists seem to favour the one or the other poetic function as defined by me is a convincing and seemingly quite groundsolid proof of the relevance of these poetic functions for human semiotics. It means that these functions now can be taken as a point of departure for defining the semantic units which a minimal speech grammar would come to work upon.

That could be a very large step forwards for linguistic theory.

If it shown that many artists cluster with consistency around the 'poetic functions' I have described, it also should mean that this is a secondary effect and that the real poetic 'discourse' of TEQ is on a higher level. Indeed my interests are also primarily esthetic-poetic and only at best secondarily grammatic.

It is likely that the norwegian authorities who rejected my PhD dissertation in 1998 did it on basis of the idea that I had not come up with a 'probabilistic speech grammar' and therefore not fulfilled the preconditions for the project I was salaried for, as described in the application of 1994. I do not think that is a right understanding of the story.

My thanks to fellow 'Geir' at the informatics institute at the university in Bergen who in 1996 kindly helped me write a program that generated all binary-branching trees up to a finite number - this program I needed for testing hypotheses on acoustic feature definitions - see the study of Correggio towards the end of example 1 - the appealing theory that the developmental or 'empirical' order of development ('establishment') of phonological categories would constitute - by their ordinality (see this study including links therein for the idea of ordinality in chinese radicals) - the basis for a corresponding ratio in an acoustic window (such as the phonological loop of probably 2 seconds duration) gliding along the speech signal. For example, it is a natural guess that a universal vocality - characterized by a clear formant structure - conjecturally would be detectable on a most general basis as cognitive principle if the two halves of the acoustic window could be shown to have identical energy values since formant structures are the same as periodicities - this abstract 'vocality' would of course embrace much more than only vowels and nasals but the principle has enough generality to apply to the generality of ordinality - and the idea would then have been that since consonantal / vocalic would be about the first featural opposition developmentally ('empirically'), it would also be detectable in a ratio point 1 / 2 in the acoustic window. It was ideas like these which led to my wish for testing this on binary-branching trees - in accordance with the original plans for the project - but I soon realized that however appealing the simplicity in this purely acoustic definition could be, it would only take the whole inquiry astray unless it were based on a thorough understanding of the poetic semantics that these highly general definitions could apply to. That was what led to the form of the dissertation - notably summed up in the short fifth part on pages 584-612 in volume 3.

This also means that if much dubious political power could have come to have been accumulated on basis of this 1998 rejection, it is likely that much of this could come to crumble with the results shown in this study - the study of art history as a source of mystic conception of the basis for semantic assignment. Some of these are summed up in these articles.

This study furthermore seems to suggest that such dubious exploitative power to some extent can be understood as closely related to the phenomenon of destruction of liturgic diachrony - that would indeed be a misunderstood contribution to the attempts of logic to eliminate the last logical operator.

Having reached these conclusions, it must be admitted that there probably is still some way to go before one can settle on the semantic elements of an arbitrary or 'non-discrete' grammar. As concerns the acoustic aspects of this, I refer to my poetic studies relative to musical data in terms of TEQ book 16 - chapter 20 of 'Poetic semiosis' in volume 3 pages 1032-1100 - and the white metre in volume 4 pages 1225-1252.

As a preliminary suggestion, this brief overview of some aspects of Correggio relative to my TEQ (partly on basis of some observations from the study of Rembrandt) can be used for giving an outline of how the acoustics will come to interact with 'semantic assignment' on basis of my TEQ: Under 'example 5' it is suggested that logical form reads left-right vs phonetic form which reads right-left and when a virtual mid point is established in TEQ (shifting it from poem #860 to poem #871-872, an offset of 12-13), a certain part of the acoustics will come to emerge against a certain part of the logics for the establishment of a logical order of an arbitrary unit of phonetic-logical attachment which can be assigned a semantics on basis of a corresponding event structure which typically will be socially encoded on background of e.g. basic pronominal values for the child developing basic linguistic categories. This means that the 'praxis' (event contexts) of function 13 will be the basis for the recognition of a distributionally based semantics by function 14 in such a way that a logical order or 're-ordering' of a function 15 can apply (when some part of reality detaches like a monitor from the surroundings - hence lending meaning to the idea of semantic 'assignment' to this detached part of reality) for the distinction of 2 seconds duration of phonological-acoustic memory in the phonological loop divided by the linebreak function 16 (attested in the difference of Bach and Bartok in volume 3 - 'Poetic semiosis' chapter 20 = pages 1032-1100) into 1+1 second (p.1032) which hence can swap logical order. This could constitute the basic principles of the white metre by TEQ books 13-16 - and clearly a theory on the nature of these acoustic features could be rather essentially dependent on the nature of the semantic assignment involved.

An example

On background of this study, Correggio's 'Nativity' (from this source) can be compared with this poem = TEQ #361 (= volume 2 page 431) as well as DDS I:55 (= volume 4 page 87). The interesting observation is the first line of TEQ #361 which tells that Mary Magdalene is the 'printed Josef': The name 'Josef' is 'printed' as follows:

יוסף

which looks like a trumpet from heaven (coming down right-left) heralding the mother of Jesus in the form of an ף - the Jesus child is in her arms and she stands upright with it. DDS is about the diachrony of language and the absolute enumeration follows the chinese Kangxi radicals: DDS I:55 has relative enumeration '55' which is absolute enumeration '69' - see this list with relativ enumeration in column 1 and absolute in column 2 (= volume 4 page 899) - and lookup in the Kangxi radicals tells that #69 is the radical sign 斤 which is discussed in this article. The proof of the diachronic character of Der Dornenstrauch is shown in the oldest known form of this chinese sign - the oracle bone inscription shown leftmost on the page of 'glyph origin' shows that the original form of this sign was the same as the hebrew ף - here by Correggio taken to mean Mary Magdalene holding the newborn Jesus child in her arms. This proves the relevance of this analysis - which is when the 'logical order' can be assumed on basis of the peculiarity of some isomorphy of modern english with the pinyin of older chinese, such as shown in the not-so-bad translation of part 5 first stanza in Ouyang Xiu's poem on what I take to be his poem on the 'white stone' formation = the 'petrification' issue. The clue is then in the hebrew for the words in the second part of the first stanza of this poem:

'rampart' = סוללה
'wild honey' = דבש פראי

It follows that the graphics of דבש פראי = 'wild honey' looks associatively like 'rampart' while 'rampart' = סוללה looks like 'oaild LaH' - here for 'wild honey'. (Russian for 'honey' = мёд).

See the suggestive graphic similarity of this sign (an alternative form of this) with Correggio's 'Nativity' - the main difference of conception being that while Correggio shows a big butterfly of FFT type (see discussion of FFT (= volume 4 page 1195) relative to the general epistemic format of the same butterfly (= volume 4 page 1277) the chinese sign shows a coordinate system form of type time-and-frequency axes which will be the result of this transform - turned 45 degrees relative to the 'X' on Correggio. See also the discussion of the 'cross' of the 3rd Fatima secret on pages 1174-75 (preceding the conclusion of the epistemic butterfly). The 'Bauchhole' in the upper left of Correggio is even present in 觔 - and one notices the FFT 'butterfly' = 'Schmetterling' in the big 'X' of Correggio. For the 'catty' sense of 斤 there is even an assumed etymological relation to a tamil form meaning 'foetus' (for the senses of this tamil word, cp. the 'lekton' leg down right of the 'X' on Correggio). 'Kopfhörblase' could be the woman with the surprised look, while 'Lächeln' would be the woman looking up.

What the example proves is that the logical order of rampart and wild honey are interchanged in english and hebrew. Mary Magdalene is the name - cp. also the name of 'Dmitri Medvedev' - and there could be some 'amygdala' forms in the two lenses or 'Brillen' that could be spotted in the work in the form of 'Brillen auf der Nase' (annotations on this image from this source):

If one studies the details of Mary's hand (to the left for our view), one can see that she possibly even could be occupied with adjusting the 'Gang' (see 'Gang' under "II. Gang als ort des gehens" - there under "2) Gang für dinge, die sich bewegen oder 'gehn'" - the sense d) "canalähnlich auch die gänge an der schraube, die gewinde, vertiefungen die um die spindel gehn" = 'thread' (as the winding spiral in a mechanic screw) - this aspect of Correggio could be telling of the idea that Mary, although the mother of the divine child, nevertheless is a human who understands by way of causalities that make the world turn around:

For the FFT 'windowing' there is also the 'lintel' to the background door or window with what looks like a tree growing upside-down - see my 'SNEEFT COEIL' chapter 2 poem 1 "Grenzstein" - this book is the synchronic counterpoint to the diachronic 'Dornenstrauch' - here the first of the 'Steine' which could be about this background phenomenon in an FFT window - with the two last lines "Die Vögel fliegen in weißer Welt / wo die Bäume wachsen umgekehrt" - and then the birds will be like the FFT butterfly in the window. (When I wrote the poem, I recalled the upside-down trees from an exhibition in London 1997 with Mariele Neudecker's tank works wherein the trees seemed to grow upside-down).

Does 'honey' receive a distributional semantics from the global function 14 in TEQ? (Search this file for 'function 14'). 'Honey' = 9-10 occurrences (01.05.98, 03.12.98, 28.12.98, 28.05.00, 28.05.00, 03.03.02, 03.03.02, 04.03.03, 25.07.05, 21.04.08) - 'phoney' and 'honeymoon' looked apart from - in book 14, over the interval 01.05.98-21.04.08 = 3644 days, with significant interval being interpretable here as the smallest on 03.03.02 which is 1404 from the beginning. If one counts 208,71 poems in book 14, multiplying this with 1404/3644 = 80,4 = poem #81 in book 14 = TEQ #1328 (= volume 2 page 1448) which has 8+1 lines if signature is counted, and these 9 lines correspond rather well with the 9-10 occurrences of 'honey'. There is only one 'rampart' in TEQ. To find the mirror poem to #81 one could consider #126 = TEQ #1373 (= volume 2 page 1497) an interesting approximation with one phone or sound per line - h-o-n-i could perhaps be a possible interpretation of the lines of this TEQ #1373. 126+81 = 207, the amount of enumerated poems in book 14.