英语字母的根表意（上）

由逻辑推理[1]可知,英语字母应该表示一些类似于公理或公理性假设的"概念"。因此,从单词的定义可以反向推论出英语字母所隐含的"概念",这是一个方面。另一方面,西方人的思维方式,如同Nisbett[2]所揭示的,决定了英语字母所隐含的"概念"应该起源于与其相似的个别事物(particular instances)或现象,然后在此基础上经过归纳推理得到,这些在本文被定义为字母的根表意。此外,西方人的思维方式还决定了字母l/L可以表示:任何人或事物(anybody or anything),其中的道理就类似于牛顿力学用一个抽象的﹑没有几何尺寸的质点模型来表示具有几何尺寸的诸多现实物体。因此,将由归纳推理所得到的英语字母的根表意和从英语单词的定义所推论出来的根表意相互检验比较,并结合一些西方文化习俗等方面的背景,就能既符合逻辑地又符合常识地揭示出英语字母的根表意和英语单词背后所隐含的图画。

The Root Ideas of English Letters (Part 1)

It is known from logic reasoning that the definition of one concept can only be made by some other defined concepts.So eventually people have to rely on some concepts,which don’t need to be defined,and these concepts can be classified into two categories:self-evident truths or generally acknowledged hypotheses [1],Because English words are composed of letters,so their definitions can only be made by the concepts implicit in English letters,which are something similar to self-evident truths or generally acknowledged hypotheses.Thus,from the definitions of words,the concepts implicit in English letters can be derived/back-traced,and this is the one hand.On the other hand,the thinking patterns of Westerners,as revealed by Nisbett[2],determine that the concepts implicit in English letters nowadays should originate from some particular instances and then have been generalized to the categories,which are defined as the root ideas.Moreover,the thinking patterns of Westerners also determine that the letter l/L can represent anybody or anything,which is the cornerstone to derive many other letters’ root ideas.And this is similar to the mass point model in Newtonian Mechanics,in which a mass point with zero size is used to represent the objects having non-zero sizes in reality.Thus,by cross-checking the root ideas generalized from the particular instances with those derived from the definitions of words,and combined with some cultural materials,the root ideas of English letters can be safely revealed.