Creativity of Language

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Creativity of Language

• Any speaker of any human language can produce
  and understand an infinite number of sentences.

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 77.
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Most Important Concept 1

• 1. Any speaker of any human language can
  produce and understand an infinite number of
  sentences. (77)
• 2. This system of rules explains how speakers
  can store infinite knowledge in a finite
  spaceour brains. (78)
• 3. The rules of the syntax permit speakers to
  produce and understand a limitless number of
  sentences never produced or heard beforethe
  creative aspect of linguistic knowledge. (82)

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 77, 78, 82.
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Most Important Concept 2

• 4. We can exploit the resources of our language
  and grammar to produce and understand a limitless
  number of sentences embodying a limitless ranges
  of ideas and emotions. (82)
• 5. Because the number of possible sentences in
  every language is infinite, there are also an
  infinite number of trees. However, all trees are
  built out of the finite set of substructures
  allowed by the grammar of the lanugage, and these
  substructures are specified by the finite set of
  phrase structure rules. (95)

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 82, 95.
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Most Important Concept 3

• 6. The number of sentences in a language is
  infinite and languages have various means of
  creating longer and longer sentences. (95)
• 7. Our brain capacity is finite, able to store
  only a finite number of categories and rules for
  their combination. Yet this finite system places
  an infinite set of sentences at our disposal.
  (101)
• 8. All speakers are capable of producing and
  understanding an unlimited number of new
  sentences that have never before been spoken or
  heard. (128)

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 95, 101, 128.
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Syntax

• The part of the grammar that represents a
  speakers knowledge of sentences and their
  structures is called syntax.

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, p. 78.
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What Syntax Reveals

• ? Word order
• ? Relationship between meaning and the
  arrangement of the words
• ? Grammatical relationsSubject and Object
• ? Grammatical constraintsVerb subcategoriation
• ? Hierarchy of grammatical constituents
• ? Grammaticality judgments
• ? Structural ambiguity

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 78-81.
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• ???

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Word Order

• 1. Harold hit Ivan.
• 2. Ivan hit Harold.
• 3. The student picked up the book.
• 4. The student picked the book up.
• 5. Sally kissed John.
• 6. John was kissed by Sally.

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Why Native Speaker Grammaticality Judgments are
Basically the Same

• Simple Answer
• ? Because native speakers of a language share the
  same set of syntactic rules their grammaticality
  judgments will be the same.

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Why Native Speaker Grammaticality Judgments are
Basically the Same

• More Complex Answer
• ? Because Native Speakers of a (variety of a)
  language SHARE the same (or nearly the same) set
  (group) of SYNTACTIC RULES their Grammaticality
  Judgments will be (approximately) the same.
• ? Their MENTAL GRAMMAR is MORE OR LESS THE SAME
• ? In other words, they have the same (nearly the
  same) linguistic competence because they grew up
  speaking the same language

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How can we judge what is grammatical?

• 1. Does NOT depend on whether you have heard it
  before
• 2. Does NOT depend on whether it is meaningful
• 3. Does NOT depend on whether you can interpret
  it
• 4. Does NOT depend on whether it is true
• 5. It DOES depend on our unconscious knowledge
  of the syntactic rules of grammar

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 82-83.
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Grammaticality Judgments of Strange Sentences

• ? Meaningless
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
• Giant tomatoes danced at my party
• last week.
• ? Uninterpretable
• Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
• did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
• ? Untrue
• Today is Wednesday.
• My brother had a baby last week.

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 82-83.
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Ambiguity

• Words (Lexical Ambiguity)
• He walked by the bank.
• He got shot in the back.
• Phrases (Structural Ambiguity)
• synthetic buffalo hides
• small car factory
• Sentences (Structural Ambiguity)
• The boy saw the man with the telescope.
• For sale an antique desk suitable for lady
• with thick legs and large drawers.

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Tree Diagram of Sentence Structure

• The child found a puppy.

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 84, 90.
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Grammatical Categories

• Content Words
• noun N NP
• verb V VP
• adjective Adj
• adverb Adv
• Function Words
• preposition Prep PP
• conjunction Conj
• interjection Interj
• auxiliary verb Aux
• modal verb Modal
• determiner Det
• quantifier Quant

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Phrase Structure Tree

• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
  2007. An Introduction to Language, 8th edition.
  Boston, MA Thomson Wadsworth, p. 124.

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Simplified Grammar of EnglishPhrase
Structure Rules

• 1. S ? NP VP
• 2. NP ? Det N (revised 100-101)
• 3. VP ? V NP
• 4. VP ? V (revised 96)
• 5. VP ? V PP
• 6. PP ? P NP
• 7. VP ? V CP
• 8. CP ? C S
• 9. NP ? NP PP (added 97)
• 10. VP ? Aux VP (added 107)

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2011. An Introduction to Language, 9th edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp. 93, 96, 97, 100,
101, 107.
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Simplified Grammar of EnglishPhrase Structure
Rules

• N ? child, boy, man, men, telescope,
• puppy, posse, baby, buffalo, hide
• V ? find, see, flee, sleep
• P ? with, from, in, on
• Adj ? small, synthetic
• Det ? the, a

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman Nina Hyams.
2007. An Introduction to Language, 8th edition.
Boston, MA Thomson Wadsworth, p. 131, adapted.
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Syntactic Rules Must Account for the Following

• ? the grammaticality of sentences
• ? word order
• ? structural ambiguity
• ? grammatical relations
• ? different structures with the same meaning
• ? the creative aspect of language.

Fromkin Rodman (1998), pp. 110-111
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Ambiguous Sentence But Unambiguous Structure

• The boy saw the man with the telescope.
• The boy saw the man with a stick.
• The boy hit the man with a stick.
• The boy hit the man with the telescope.

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Grammaticality Judgments