Why Law, Logic, and Language is Anterior to Linguists By Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., M.B.A., Phd.

, Coif Perpetual (C)Copyright (2011 C.E.) By Anthony J. Fejfar and Neothomism, P.C., (PA), and King Louis XIV, Immortal, House of Stuart. In his book, Of Grammatology, author Jaques Derrida argues, wrongly, that linguistics is anterior to logic, philosophy, law, etc. In fact, it is easy to conclude that linguistics is in fact posterior to language, logic, philosophy, religion, law, etc. First, there are cave paintings which are over 100,000 years old which depict the religious cosmology of the time, when written language had not yet been developed. Moreover, it difficult to see why written linguistics and auditory linguistics have much to do with each other at all. Strictly speaking, linguistics can only study a written language which has sufficiently developed such that logical syntactic rules and definitions and a standard alphabet have developed. For example, prior to the year 1,600 (C.E.) the English language was primarily oral-auditory in nature. Prior to 1,600, in England, there was not standard dictionary and

there was not standard alphabet, and there was no standard lexicon. Thus, prior to 1,600, there was no standardized spelling of words. (See, generally, Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy). Of course there is also the issue that linguistics, the words of linguistics are simply another example of language, where language is always subject to an interpretative act. (See, Gadamer, Fish, Levinson). In other words, anything that Derrida says about linguistics is simply another word or words caught in the trap of the hermeneutic circle (Gadamer). Of course, Derrida might have found a way out of this hermeutic trap, such as making an operative assertion involving a cognitive operation which transcends language (See, Lonergan and Gadamer), but, sadly, Derridas assertion that linguistic language is anterior or transcendent to language, as such, is rendered logically incoherent. Of course Derrida, if he were still alive, might object that linguistic language is anterior to logic. However, in the same way which Niezsche asserted that God is Dead, but then was posthumously confounded by later bumper stickers, stating Niezsche is Dead, signed God, we can see that concrete logic is anterior to linguistic language or analysis. You see, typically linguistics are not seriously studied until after high school, yet, a

child of 3 years old can make the simple logical judgment that an Apple cannot be in (hae) his or her, left hand at the same time and in the same place. Thus we can see that body language is developed an used an early age, and does not seem to be withing the scope of study of linguistics. For example, if I were to flip the bird with my right hand middle finger to Derrida, I doubt that any analysis of this physical body gesture would have anything to do with linguistic. Moreover, if I were to flip the bird to Duncan Kennedy with my little finger of my right hand, which is Sioux Indian Sign language, it is difficult to see how Derrida could come up with some sort of logically consistent analysis of either hand gesture. Thus, does Derrida consider Sign Language to be within the realm of linguistics? And, of course, this raises the difficulty for Derrida of dealing with languages from different cultures. For example, the Chinese read from top to bottom and from right to left, while Americans read from left to right, and then down the page, line by line. Also, there are significant differences in meaning, such that, some words are not even translatable into another language. For example, in Mexico, God is referred to as El Senor, while in Spain God is referred to as Dios. You see, El Senor, strictly speaking means, The Man, while Dios does not.

Moreover, the issue of slang language or new words also cannot be dealt with by Derrida. For example, Castillian slang spanish contains the phrase, Que Va?, meaning Whats going on?, while Mexican spanish does not. Additionally, Castillian slang Spanish also contain the phrase, De Donde?, which means, Where are you going?, while Mexican spanish does not. Also, all romance languages, such as latin, italian, spanish, and french, all have a neuter pronoun in their verb declensions. Thus, they have the general verb declension of: American English I go You go He goes We go (Hae) goes They go Spanish Voy Vas Va Vamos Vais Van

Please note that in Spanish there is no female pronoun, but there is a neuter promoun (see vais) above. In Americna English I have developed the neuter pronoun and verb Hae which mean neuter person or him or her, as

hae. Thus, Linguistics ala Derrida, are not going to be able to come up with any really practical linguistic insights. As another example, only recently has Intuition been added to the latin, italian, french, or spanish dictionaries. Intuition in those languages, which has been in the American Dictionary for a long time. Thus, in french, spanish, italian, and latin, we can now recognize Intuition as a valid word: Intuitae (Intuition) I Intuit (Intuito)

You intuit (Intuitas) He Intuits (Intuita) We Intuit (Intuitamos) Hae Intuits (Intuitais) We Intuit (Intuitamos) Now, in addition to the foregoing we can also see that there are cognitive faculties or cognitive operations, which are not linguist, and which are anterior to language, and certainly anterior to linguistic language. Intuition, referred to above, for example, involves high speed unconscious or preconscious thought processes which produces insights which are not

linguistic, such as an interior image in the imagination of a tree, or a train, or a dog, or a cat, etc. Such symbolic language is not linguistic at all, but rather involves an iconograph. Finally, it should be noted that natural language precedes linguistic language, and, natural language has its own logical rules, prior to linguistics. Thus, small children form oral sentences which involves both nouns and verbs, prior to any idea of linguistic analysis or language. And, such natural language has its own laws or rules, prior to conscious reflection. Thus a noun is a body out there or a thing (Lonergan), while a verb is an action or a movement out there. A noun is a subject or object which can move something else (a verbal movement in fact). Thus the (noun dog)

(barks) as a (verb action). And, the (noun water) (moves) as a (verb action). Thus, we can see that the foregoing linguistic analysis, by Tony Fejfar discovers that there are nouns and verbs, and that, there is a rule or law, that a noun is not a verb, and a verb is not a noun. Therefore, we can see that is sophistry or fallacious to say the bark dogs. Moreover, it is also sophistry or fallacious to to say that the move waters. Accordingly, we can logically, and reasonably conclude that law precedes linguistics and

linguistic language.