There you are, in the library, studying for your English Language A Level. You’ve done all the interesting bits: language and gender, sociolinguistics, discourse, and now it’s come to phonology and syntax. Why do I have to study this, you think, as your eyes begin to droop, and your head begins to nod and you begin to dream of a galaxy far, far away …

FROM: The Director, Gargoplex Institute, Alpha Centauri TO: Chief Exo-Scientist Jenl Itstre
VIA: Direct Telepathocrystal Network
RE: New Mission

New discovery made on planet 3, system 3.387. Species (designation Yu-Man), highly successful within biosphere, developed intelligence (level 2), culture (level 2.1) and technology (level 2.2), yet apparently no telepathic ability. Raises severe theoretical problems for doctrine 6.8 of Gargoplexic Code: Intelligence Culture Technology (ICT) count above level 2 requires communication; sophisticated communication is possible only via telepathy; therefore level 2 intelligence requires telepathy.

Council is worried about ethical questions relating to experimentation on non-telepathic beings, and about apparent support the existence of Yu-Mans gives for Anti-Vivisectionist Movement. Please investigate immediately.

FROM: C.E.S Jenl Itstre
TO: Director, GI, Alpha Centauri
VIA: DTN
RE: re: New Mission – Report 1
Have entered orbit. Confirm intelligence, culture and technology levels. Species seems to have highly developed communication abilities. No telepathy observed. Hypothesis: communication system is simple symbolic, associating one external sign with one thought (cf. Report ‘Octihydras of Glarg: 7, 203 tentacular positions for 7, 203 distinct messages’. Octihydras classified below level 2 on general ICT count.). Perhaps Yu-Mans simply have many external signs? Will determine nature of external physical signs relevant to species. No tentacles observed.

FROM: C.E.S Jenl Itstre
TO: Director, GI Alpha Centauri
VIA: DTN 6.8.9
RE: re: New Mission – Report 2
Exciting new discovery. Like many other species on planet 3, species Yu-Man’s physical manifestation of thought is not visual nor olfactory, as is usual for lower species across the galaxy (cf. Report ‘Lower Xenomorph Communication’, subsection 3.3.45). Unbelievably, it involves instead the manipulation of orifices for oxygen intake and food intake to create pressure waves in the air. Such systems have been hypothesised before, but it has always been assumed that creatures would find it too difficult to extract the relevant air pressure modulations from general noise and that such physical signs would thereby be impossible to use as the basis of communication systems (see Itstre and Itstre ‘On the impossibility of sound based communication’. Report GI).

RE: re: New Mission – Report 3
Troubling discovery. As is well known, simple symbolic systems are capable of only having a finite number of possible messages (Istre and Grofr ‘Finiteness and Communication’, GIM Monographs, AC1). Species Yu-Man have no such limitation – they can communicate an apparently infinite number of sophisticated thoughts between each other without telepathy, apparently just by physically changing the air pressure around them. First hypothesis must be rejected. This gets more perplexing by the hour.

RE: re: New Mission – Report 4
Psychological profile completed: Yu-Mans have complex thoughts in usual multi-dimensional, non-linear form. Communication profile: all members of this species (and none others in the biosphere as far as can be determined) have this curious ability to communicate an infinite number of thoughts without telepathy. Suggestion: Yu-Mans somehow map from their thought structures into physical structures directly so that air pressure modulations directly mirror the structure of thought. No, this can’t be correct. Air pressure structures cannot bear such a load of information. Am not thinking clearly. Obviously turning native.

RE: re: New Mission – Report 5
New evidence which is most perplexing: I have established that Yu-Mans can extract patterns from different air structures as hypothesized in previous communications. Some of these patterns clearly relate to thoughts, in a simple symbolic way. For example, a special pattern of sound waves (somewhat abstracted) links the symbol ‘planet-3’ to the right thought and so on. But there is also something we have never seen before. Connecting the symbols in different ways allows Yu-Mans to create complex patterns of symbols that mirror the structure of the relevant thought. It turns out that for some groups of Yu-Mans the order in which the symbols come matters. So even though the pattern ‘the sun orbits planet-3’ has exactly the same symbols as ‘planet-3 orbits the sun’, the fact the parts come in a different order means that it relates to a different thought. Even more peculiar, not all combinations of symbols are possible. For the same group ‘orbits planet-3 the sun’ has no corresponding thought. How on Alpha-Centauri do they manage?

RE: re: New Mission – Report 6
Have new inspiration: Yu-Mans have some sort of an internal symbol manipulation device, part of their psychological makeup, just as telepathic abilities are part of our psychology. Perhaps the usual telepathic development mutated in this species. (I hope it wasn’t as a result of the Interstellar Radiation Dump we set up 20,000 years back in nearby Cygnus 3!) My idea is that this internal symbol manipulation device can be used to build complicated structures, which mirror the structure of thought well enough to be used for communication purposes. Bizarre, I know. Need advice.

FROM: Director, GI Alpha Centauri
TO: CES Jenl Itstre
RE: previous report
Intriguing: you are suggesting that Yu-Mans can manipulate symbols in their minds to mirror the structure of thoughts and then they turn these same symbols into movements of their breathing and food intake orifices which eventually create puffs of air in the surrounding atmosphere! And you are suggesting further that other Yu-Mans can sense these different air-puffs, turn them back into mental symbols and then use that to work out what the original thought was. Amazing abilities, but I can see how telepathic communication could be mimicked in this way. How do you propose to conceptualise these processes?

FROM: CES Jenl Itstre
RE: Hypothesis 2
Following Concept Processing Protocols I propose the following: Yu-Mans’ ability to manipulate symbols to approximate the structure of their thoughts will be syntax, and their capacity to turn these symbols into physical instructions for their mouths and lungs will be phonology.

FROM: Director, GI Alpha Centauri
TO: CES Jenl Istre
Make the study of syntax and phonology your prime concern. It is clearly the key to the communication that makes these Yu-Mans so successful in their non-telepathic environment. It’s also perhaps a good route to understanding the structure of Yu-Mans’ thought processes and the ways in which the turn these thoughts into actions. Repeat: make the study of syntax and phonology your prime …

… ow! As your head hits the table, you wake up. Hmmm, so syntax is about mirroring the structure of thought itself, and phonology involves the amazing ability to glean meanings from how the air moves around you. No wonder they make us study this stuff.