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The Chemistry of Protolanguage
 TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO: 
The Chemistry of Protolanguage
Yuri Tarnopolsky
 2004
Last revised: December 1, 2010
 
NEW
:PATTERN CHEMISTRY OF THOUGHT AND SPEECH(2010)
 
2
Keywords
: protolanguage, language origin, language evolution, speech generation,chemistry, chemical nomenclature, linearization, Pattern Theory, Transition State Theory,complexity, Ulf Grenander, George Zipf, Noam Chomsky, Joseph Greenberg, Mark Baker, Manfred Eigen, Ilya Prigogine, Walter Ross Ashby, René Thom, GeorgeHammond, Robert Rosen, axiom of closure.
ABSTRACT
 Protolanguage
(Derek Bickerton) in linguistics corresponds to anevolutionary stage preceding the grammaticalized language as we know it.It could be possible to reconstruct the principles of protolanguage byturning to most general principles of evolution in a larger picture, of whichchemistry is a relevant part. Both linguistics and chemistry are discretecombinatorial systems. Considering the chemical origin of life, chemicalanalogies might offer some insight into the origin of mind, language, andsociety, all of which developed on the platform of life. The conceptual basis for discrete combinatorial systems, including chemistry andlanguage, can be found in Pattern Theory (Ulf Grenander) where ideas,utterances, and molecules are
configurations
. To draw the parallel further,chemistry uses its own
language
of chemical nomenclature to representnon-linear molecular structures as linear strings of symbols. Chemistry pays particular attention to the intimate mechanisms of structuraltransformations. A tentative concept of the mechanism of protolanguagegeneration is suggested as kinetically controlled linearization of a typicallynon-linear observable configuration through a non-observable thought.Generation of linear expressions in protolanguage is viewed as a processof generalized chemistry, going from a typically non-linear initial statethrough a transition state toward the linear output, under the constraint of amaximized preservation of configuration topology.
 
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction 42. Preview of main ideas 83. Chemistry and linguistics: sister sciences 134. Noam Chomsky and Joseph Greenberg 165. Chinese and Chemicalese 256. René Thom and images of change 317. Configurations, patterns, and Nean 398. Some risky ideas about mathematics and life 489. Chemolinguistry: a chimera 5110. Tikki Tikki Tembo: language as a form of life 6311. Zipfing the chimera 6812. A chemist and a chimp speak Nean 7813. Scenes from the cave life told in Nean 8414. Concluding remarks 9815. APPENDIX15.1
 
Example of Chemicalese 10115.2 Examples of real-life large configurations 102
 
15.3 The chemical view of the world 10315.4. Program
nean
110References 110
of 00

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