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Last time, we discussed what arguments are

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for, their purposes.
We saw that arguments have at least three

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purposes,
namely, persuasion, justification, and

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explanation.
We also saw that one way to explain

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something is to cite its purpose.
So, we can understand why Joe went to the

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store by seeing that he went to the store
because he wanted some milk.

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So his purpose was to get milk.
Similarly, we can understand arguments by

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looking at their purposes, and that's what
we did last time.

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But this time,
we're looking at a different kind of

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explanation.
And as we saw, one way to explain things

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is to look at the material.
So you want to understand why a MacBook

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Air is so light, the answer is, it's made
out of aluminum.

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Similarly, if we want to understand
arguments, we're going to gain understanding

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by looking carefully at the material that
they're made out of.

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And we saw that arguments are sets of
sentences, statements, and propositions.

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So that means they're made out of
language.

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So, in this lecture, and the next few,
we're going to look at the nature of

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language in order to better understand
arguments.

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So, if we know that arguments are made out
of language, we know that the only

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creatures who can give arguments are ones
that can use language.

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Now some people think that other animals
can use language, and there's a minimum

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kind of language that other animals can
use.

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But other animals cannot use language
that's complex enough to make argument

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with.
It might seem that there's some

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exceptions.
Here's one possibility.

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But no matter what it sounds

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like, this goat is not really arguing.
Maybe he's fighting, maybe he's fending

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off what he takes to be an enemy, but he's
not arguing.

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So, if other animals can use language, we
can't define humans as the animal that

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talks.
But we can define humans as the animal

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that argues,
or as Aristotle said, the rational animal,

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the animal that reasons, because other
animals don't do that.

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Humans are the only one that argues and
reasons in this sense.

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So,
we can understand humans and arguments

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better if we understand language better.
Now I can't tell you everything that needs

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to be said about language.
You'd need to take a linguistics course

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for that.
And I recommend that you try one,

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because it's very interesting.
But here I'm only going to be able to make

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four basic points about language.
First of all, language is important.

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Second, it's conventional.
Third, it's representational.

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And fourth, it's social.
That should at least get us going in

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understanding what arguments are made of.
First, language is important.

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It would be extremely difficult to live
life without language.

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Just try to imagine what it would be like.
It's really hard to imagine.

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But think about someone like Helen Keller,
who was born able to see and hear, but

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very shortly thereafter lost her ability
to see and hear.

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It was only much later in life that she
gained the ability to use language,

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because she never had that in her early
years.

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And when she gained that ability, she was
amazed.

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W, a, t, e, r, water.
It has a name.

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W, a, t.

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When Helen Keller gained the ability to
use language and to communicate, she

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didn't become able to see or hear.
She still couldn't see or hear, but she

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could do amazing things.
She went around the country giving

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presentations.
She graduated from Radcliffe College.

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All of that was made available to her,
simply by adding language and

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communication to her life.
So language is extremely useful, and that

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explains why it's all around us.
Just imagine walking down the streets of

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the city and all the signs that you'd see.
You just see words here, there and

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everywhere.
And now we have a mystery.

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If we're not paying attention to language,
then how can we use it so well to achieve

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so many purposes?
The answer to that lies in the second

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general feature of language that I want to
talk about, namely, language is

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conventional.
But what's a convention?

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Remember that in the United States people
drive on the right-hand side of the road.

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That's our convention.
But what does that mean?

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It means that there's a general pattern of
behavior that most people throughout

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society obey on a regular basis, and they
criticize people who deviate from that

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pattern.
And the same applies to language.

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We have certain patterns of using words in
certain ways, and when people deviate from

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those patterns we criticize them.
We say they're misspeaking or it's

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ungrammatical.
Of course, conventions can vary.

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Everybody knows that there are many
countries around the world where people

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don't drive on the right-hand side of the
road, they drive on the left-hand side of

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the road.
United Kingdom's one of them, but there

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are lots more.
And the same applies to language.

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You can have the same word that's used to
mean very different things in different

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languages.
Most notorious example is football.

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In the United States it's used to refer to
American Football whereas in the rest of

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the world it's used to refer to what
Americans call soccer.

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And people in the rest of the world think
that America is kind of silly because you

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don't use your feet on the ball except for
punting and placekicking in football.

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But whether it makes sense or not the
point here is simply that the conventions

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can vary from one part of the world to the
other.

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And of course, you can do that with any
word.

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You could, in English, use the word, money
to refer to socks. At least the English

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language could've done that.
It could've done that.

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It didn't, but it could've.
So, in this way, conventions seem to be

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kind of arbitrary.
They could've been very different.

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But language is far from completely
arbitrary, because the conventions of

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language have limits, and two of these
limits that I want to emphasize come from

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the fact that language is also
representational and social.

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So first language is representational.
When we use language, we're often trying

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to refer to objects in the world, and
describe facts in the world.

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And you can't change those objects or
those facts merely by changing your

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language.
One good story to illustrate this is about

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the young Lincoln.
When he was a lawyer, he supposedly

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examined a witness during a trial, and he
said,

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Okay, how many legs does a horse have?
And the witness said, Four.

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And then Lincoln said, Well,
if we call a tail a leg, then how many

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legs does a horse have?
And the witness said, Well,

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then I suppose the horse would have five
legs.

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And Lincoln said, Absolutely not.
That's wrong.

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Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a
leg.

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And the point of this story, whether it's
true historically or not, is that language

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cannot change the facts of the world.
It can't make horses have five legs, if

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you merely change your language.
Here's another example.

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Suppose that you don't have much money,
But you happen to have a lot of socks in

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your drawer.
Well, you could say, I'm going to use the

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word money to refer to socks.
And now all of a sudden I've got lots of

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money.
I'm not poor anymore.

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It ain't going to work,
and that's because language, again, can't

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change your financial situation
because that's a fact about the world,

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not about how you're using the word socks
or the word money.

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And the other limit on the conventions of
language comes from the fact that language

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is social.
Sure, sometimes we talk to ourselves and

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use language to write things down, write
notes to ourselves, for example, without

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other people around but basically language
evolved because of its social function.

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What that means is that there's a point in
following the conventions of the language

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as shared by the rest of that society that
speaks that language.

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I've always thought that it was
kind of silly that grapefruits are called

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grapefruits.
Sure, they're fruits, but they don't look

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like grapes at all.
They look more like lemons.

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They're like really big lemons, and
that's why I think they ought to be called

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mega lemons.
But If I went to a restaurant, and I

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wanted to order grapefruit juice, so I
turned to the service person and

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said, I'd like some mega lemon juice, I
probably wouldn't get what I wanted.

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And so even if I think the language is not
using the right conventions, there's a

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point in following the conventions of the
language in order to be able to

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communicate with other people and get what
I want.

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And again, the great philosophers Monty
Python saw this very well, when they

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produced their little clip called, The Man
Who Speaks Only In Anagrams.

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Our first guest into the studio tonight is
a man who talks entirely in anagrams.

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Patsee Greot.
Do you enjoy this?

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I dom certainlyodd revychumso.
What's your name?

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Hamrack, Hamrack Yeterot.
So the point is obvious.

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Language is shared and once it's shared
then it make sense to actually follow the

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conventions of society even if you don't
like them.

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Overall then, language is important, and
it's conventional in ways that might seem

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arbitrary,
but actually, is limited in important ways

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by the fact that language is also
representational and social.

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But it's kind of cheap to say language is
conventional.

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Which are the conventions?
Which are the rules that language follows?

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And this is actually extremely complex,
because language follows rules or

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conventions at many different levels.
Just take a real simple example.

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You walk into a pizza shop and you say,
Gimme pepperoni.

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Well, the person then fixes a pepperoni
pizza.

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And you pay for it.
But how did that work?

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That you said, Gimme pepperoni.
Well, first of all notice, that you had to

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use words that were meaningful to the
person you were speaking to.

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Gimme wasn't a word in English, a long
time ago,

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but this person understands gimme as a
word, and therefore they can understand

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it.
But in addition to those semantic

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constraints, you also have to have
physical production constraints.

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You have to say it loud enough.
If the pizza shop is really noisy, then

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you have to speak pretty loudly to get the
person behind the counter, to understand

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what you're saying.
You also have to put the words in the

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right order.
If, instead of saying, gimme a pepperoni

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pizza, you said,
Pizza a gimme pepperoni,

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they might not understand at all what
you're saying.

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So there are structural combination rules
that you have to follow as well.

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And there are also etiquette rules. In
some pizza places if you just said,

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Gimme pepperoni, the waiter might say,
Well, forget it, sir.

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I don't serve such impolite
people.

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I certainly would say that to my son if my
son said, Gimme pepperoni.

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I wouldn't get him a piece.
I'd say, you need to ask me properly.

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So rules of etiquette can also get in the
way of communication and cooperation.

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So language operates at all of these
levels.

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Physical production, semantics, or the
meanings of words, syntax, or the rules of

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grammar, and etiquette.
Now all of this might seem obvious to you.

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And it probably should be obvious to you.
But the rules of language are not always

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obvious.
And that's what we're going to be learning

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throughout this course.
I'll start with a simple example.

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What's this?
Well, that is a finger.

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Okay.
But what's this?

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Aaaah.
That is a singer.

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This is not a finger.
That's not a singer.

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Why do we pronounce the word finger with a
hard G and the word singer with a soft G?

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That's a rule that we all follow, but very
few people know the rule behind that

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pronunciation.
So, do you know the rule?

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Take a little while and think about it.
.

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Have you got it yet?
Okay, I'll tell you the answer.

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When a word ends in N, G, E, R, and it's
derived from a verb that ends in NG, then

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you get a soft G, like singer.
But when the word that ends in N, G, E, R,

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is not derived from a verb that ends in
NG, then you get either a hard G, like

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finger,
Or a kind of medium G like plunger or

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danger.
Now when you get that medium G or that

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hard G that's a trickier question.
And I don't know the answer to that one,

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which shows that we can all use language
according to rules, without knowing what

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the rules are.
We don't have to be conscious of the rules

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at all.
And a lot of what we're going to be doing

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in this course is looking behind our
language to try to figure out the rules

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that govern the way we use language,
especially when we're making arguments in

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order to better understand what we're
doing.

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Some of the answers we give will be
obvious once you mention them.

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But, I bet you hadn't thought of him
before.