In the Physics chapter we have shown that we can co-opt some physics frameworks to describe the dynamics of language. To go further: Can the changes in the state of vocables (from lexical to functional) be specifically described in the language of the Ising model? This model has a two-dimensional solution,(the one we will use), and was discovered by Onsager in 1944. It is now a familiar tool of statistical thermodynamics. Consider the developments of language as the product of the millions of individual linguistic transactions. These transactions convert the raw physical energy expended in the production of speech into minute neuro-physiological alterations in other members of the linguistic community, alterations that contribute to the shape of future linguistic interactions. This is the first step in correlating both the Ising model and a simple language model. This chapter will elaborate further along these lines, to demonstrate the relevance of such a physical model to a discussion of language.
If the underlying research is correct, then the eventual outcome of this process is that many vocables pass from a stage in which we typically can explain them by definition or ostension, to a stage in which virtually all of us can use them but none of us can understand them. This is the process that we refer to as lexical attenuation.