Karl Haag, Modern Linguistics, and ‘Real Character’

Abstract

This paper introduces the German linguist Karl Haag (1860-1946) and places his work within the historical context of writings on ‘universal language’, artificial languages and the development of mathematics and logic in the early part of the 20th century. Haag’s 1902 book develops a system to describe the logical structure of language and to represent it not by words but by symbols. The basis of the system is that language is predicated on the human body and it is through our perceptions of space (the vertical, the horizontal, the distant, and the enclosed) that we create both literal and figurative language. These perceptions form semantic primes and may be applied equally to a number of fields, e.g., the biological and the mechanical. Haag produces symbols to represent the primes and the fields. He furthermore introduces the notion of ‘force levels’, by which a single concept such as ‘in’ may apply at five levels (be in, go in, put in, force in, be inserted). A basic argument-predicate structure is offered for syntax, and Haag demonstrates the elliptical nature of relative clauses, as well as the ways in which spatial primes may be used as conjunctions. A critique of the system follows. The relevance of Haag’s work to modern work on linguistics and to a digital Real Character is discussed and appropriate modifications and applications are suggested.