Mobile Sequencers
This work addresses a foundational problem in linguistics and AI for researchers seeking unified theories of language and action, but it is incremental as it builds on existing ideas without presenting new empirical data or benchmarks.
The paper tackles the problem of finding a common origin for language and planned-collaborative action by proposing that semantics of change is central, suggesting that linguistic semantics and action semantics share a core through mobile sequencers structuring change and no change. The result is an invitation to rethink categories in language and planning, with implications for anthropology and a synthesis relying on representational history.
The article is an attempt to contribute to explorations of a common origin for language and planned-collaborative action. It gives `semantics of change' the central stage in the synthesis, from its history and recordkeeping to its development, its syntax, delivery and reception, including substratal aspects. It is suggested that to arrive at a common core, linguistic semantics must be understood as studying through syntax mobile agent's representing, tracking and coping with change and no change. Semantics of actions can be conceived the same way, but through plans instead of syntax. The key point is the following: Sequencing itself, of words and action sequences, brings in more structural interpretation to the sequence than which is immediately evident from the sequents themselves. Mobile sequencers can be understood as subjects structuring reporting, understanding and keeping track of change and no change. The idea invites rethinking of the notion of category, both in language and in planning. Understanding understanding change by mobile agents is suggested to be about human extended practice, not extended-human practice. That's why linguistics is as important as computer science in the synthesis. It must rely on representational history of acts, thoughts and expressions, personal and public, crosscutting overtness and covertness of these phenomena. It has implication for anthropology in the extended practice, which is covered briefly.