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NL-KR Digest Volume 03 No. 50
NL-KR Digest (11/17/87 18:44:32) Volume 3 Number 50
Today's Topics:
Re: Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
Re: Langendoen and Postal (posted by: B
Degenerate Lang Learning Experiment
1) definite article; 2) Helen Keller; 3) syntax vs. semantics; 4)me
Re: Practical effects of AI (speech)
MS DOS Software at LSA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 87 16:26 EST
From: Mark Mehdi Towfigh <mmtowfig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
In article <356@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>In article <1074@uhccux.UUCP>, stampe@uhccux.UUCP (David Stampe) writes:
>> Another mode, as in speed-reading, is too fast for that. I'm not
>> sure it's really linguistic (as opposed to merely conceptual) stuff at
>> all. Not everyone can read that fast.
>Sure, it's linguistic. What's being read is language, isn't it?
I imagine that Mr. Stampe knows what linguistics is, judging from his
previous postings. I believe what he is asking is whether the task of
"speed reading" is actually "normal-paced" reading sped up, or a
different method of acquiring knowledge from text. Those are two
different processes, it seems to me, and in the end whether or not
they come under the umbrella of the word "linguistics" does not matter
as much.
>> Furthermore, there seems to be only one available rhythmic channel.
>> We can follow/imagine/play several voices in a fugue only when they
>> are part of a single rhythmic structure.
>Just yesterday about this time I was playing a Greek tune with a
>couple of friends, a fast hasapikos, of the sort where the tune is
>often in jig time, while the accompaniment is in 2/4. I had no
>trouble at all playing the melody on the keyboard of my accordion (in
>6/8) while playing the chords (in 2/4) on the bass. I learned to do
>such things on the piano when I was 9, and I have done it often since.
>Maybe for musical illiterates, but not for a Real Musician.
Ignoring your boasting, I believe if you look more carefully at the
act of playing two seemingly unrelated rhythms at once, it could break
down into two possible analyses (like speed reading above): either
playing two rhythms is an act of playing them separately together,
asyou seem to maintain, or the mind has established the least common
divisor, if you will, of the two rhythms, and has thus constructed a
completely different time.
>> Carrying placards protesting at a military parade one can't keep from
>> walking in rhythm to the military music. Walking faster while we're
>> talking seems to make us talk faster.
>If you were ever involved in a musical production in school, one of
> ...
>that it looks "amateurish", and they learn real fast.
>
>In general, it is a bad idea to look at the behavior of a set of people
>handicapped by lack of training or interest, and generalize to all humans.
What are you talking about here? As a forum for language-related
discussions, the basic thrust of what you have said, "I've done a lot
of things and many other people cannot do them", does not seem to
quite fit. Leave the ego at the door.
"Maybe *you* can't. Don't generalize to the rest of us. And there are
many people around who can read at 5 or 6 times normal speaking speed
with full comprehension. If you can't, it's probably due to lack of
training. I've always found it frustrating to listen to lectures,
when I can read an hour's worth of speech in 10 or 15 minutes, with
better comprehension most of the time. In general, it is a bad idea
to look at the behavior of a set of people handicapped by lack of
training or interest, and generalize to all humans. Just yesterday
about this time I was playing a Greek tune with a couple of friends, a
fast hasapikos, of the sort where the tune is often in jig time, while
the accompaniment is in 2/4. I had no trouble at all playing the
melody on the keyboard of my accordion (in 6/8) while playing the
chords (in 2/4) on the bass. I learned to do such things on the piano
when I was 9, and I have done it often since. In the Mideastern
musical circles with which I sometimes associate, people would give
you a funny look if you suggested that such elementary polyrythms were
difficult. Maybe for musical illiterates, but not for a Real
Musician. True, there are and always have been a lot of illiterate or
marginally literate people in the world. That's not a comment on the
capabilities of humans in general, but merely of the deficiencies of
those illiterates. Most Americans are couch potatoes; that is no
reflection at all on the rest of us."
=======================================================================
Mark Towfigh If there's one thing I like better than a bologna
and whipped cream sandwich, it's honey and ketchup.
UUCP: ...princeton!phoenix!mmtowfig BITNET: 6110480@PUCC
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 87 17:47 EST
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
In article <1074@uhccux.UUCP> stampe@uhccux.UUCP (David Stampe) writes:
>...
>all. Not everyone can read that fast. (In fact, not everyone can
>read silently. Children normally seem to read aloud at first, and
>only gradually to learn to read silently. The same seems to be true
>in human history. There's a passage, in ?Augustine, about people
>being amazed that ?Jerome could read without moving his lips. Maybe
>...
Why do people move their lips when reading? Is this just a phenomenon
that afflicts alphabet-readers? For example, do Chinese children move
their lips when reading silently? I have always thought that lip
movements indicated the reader's attempt to understand the word by
phonemic representation. The reader "sounds out" a word, because it is
unfamiliar. The phoneme-grapheme correspondences allow the reader to
figure out what lexical item the visual sign represents.
I suspect that English speakers read just like Chinese speakers--i.e.
that printed/written words form visual gestalts. The neat thing about
alphabetic writing is that it gives the learner a handy way to learn new
signs--by looking up their meanings under a previously-learned
phonological representation. It can also work in the opposite fashion:
a new word can enter the lexicon with a 'spelling pronunciation'. But I
see the mental lexicon as containing both phoneme-based and letter-based
annotations on entries. This means that 'normal reading' need not
be mediated by phonological representations.
-Rick Wojcik: rwojcik@boeing.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 87 03:34 EST
From: goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Langendoen and Postal (posted by: B
< In article <8300011@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu>, goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu
< comments on an article by berke@CS.UCLA.EDU:
< > ...
< > Such a set is countably infinite. Far from being a proper class,
< > this is a very manageable set. If you move the discussion up to the
< > cardinality of the set of "discourses", which would be finite sequences of
< > strings in the language, you are still only up to the power set of the
< > integers, which has the same cardinality as the set of Real numbers.
< > Again, this is a set, and not a proper class.
< > Mark Goldfain arpa: goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu
< ---------------------
< The set of all finite sequences of finite strings in a language (the set
< of "discourses") is still just a countably infinite set (assuming that the
< alphabet is finite or countably infinite, of course). The set of infinite
< sequences of finite strings is uncountable, with the same cardinality as the
< set of real numbers, as is the set of infinite strings.
< ...
< I certainly agree with the general objections raised to the idea that
< natural languages are uncountably large (or, worse yet, proper classes),
< although I haven't read the book in question. Maybe somebody can state
< more precisely what the book claimed, but it seems at first glance to
< indicate a lack of understanding of modern set theory.
< ...
< Mitchell Spector |"Give me a
< Dept. of Computer Science & Software Eng., Seattle Univ.| ticket to
< Path: ...!uw-beaver!uw-entropy!dataio!suvax1!spector | Mars!!"
< or: dataio!suvax1!spector@entropy.ms.washington.edu | - Zippy the Pinhead
< ------------------
OOPS---OOPS---OOPS---OOPS---OOPS---OOPS----OOPS---OOPS----OOPS---OOPS----OOPS
Mitchell Spector is correct! I must have been thinking very sluggishly,
and I hope none of my professors (past or present) is watching. In any
case, we still have our basic objection, only it is now greatly
strengthened. Indeed, it is a well-known and oft-used proposition in
computing theory that the number of things that can be said in a
finite-alphabet language is COUNTABLE.
ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS---ENDOOPS
Continuing the "attack" ... recall that the original posting said:
> /* ---------- "Langendoen and Postal ---------- */
> ...
> Their basic proof/conclusion holds that natural languages, as linguistics
> construes them (as products of grammars), are what they call
> mega-collections, Quine calls proper classes, and some people hold cannot
> exist. That is, they maintain that (1) Sentences cannot be excluded from
> being of any, even transfinite size, by the laws of a grammar, and (2)
> Collections of these sentences are bigger than even the continuum. They are
> the size of the collection of all sets: too big to be sets. ...
My follow-up and Mitchell Spector's note explained why this statement is
incorrect. Note that from the above, the issue is not really "real English",
but the size of a language as SPECIFIED BY A GRAMMAR.
I then asked:
> I haven't seen the book you cite. They must make some argument as to why
> they think natural languages (or linguistic theories about them)
> admit infinite sentences. Even given that, we would have only the Reals
> (i.e. the "Continuum") as a cardinality without some further surprising
> claims. Can you summarize their argument (if it exists) ?
The only response so far that hints as to their arguments is that posted by
lee@uhccux.UUCP :
> Concerning the length of sentences, I think Postal and Langendoen are not
> very persuasive. Most of their arguments are to the effect that previously
> given attempted demonstrations that sentences cannot be of infinite length
> are incorrect. I think they make that point very well. But obviously this
> is not enough To show that one should assume some sentences of infinite
> length.
> Greg Lee, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
Still, without more specifics, this whole argument may continue to be way out
in left field. At the risk of knocking down a mere "straw man", consider: If
these experiments set a size, say 100 words (or more reasonably 100
constituents), then proceeded to test subjects, finding that this was an
insufficient upper bound, then tried 200, failing again, then tried 500, still
finding subjects who thought the sentences were grammatical, then:
1) I am really, really surprised. I think the experiments should be
replicated simply because I find the above too ludicrous to swallow.
2) We still have a LONG ways to go before we conclude that NO upper bound
exists. (It is like the humorous story about the "engineer's proof" that
all odd numbers > 1 are prime : "Let's see, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is
prime, ... Yep! All of 'em must be!") Let them test a LARGE number like
10,000 and get back to me when the results come in ...
3) Finally, the notion of a set with no upper bound is a different
mathematical beast than a set containing non-finite elements! Consider the
positive integers; there is no largest integer, but that does not mean that
any of them must be infinite ... in fact, none of them are.
Note: The last point is rather briefly stated - if you haven't run across it
in a course or somewhere before, it deserves a moment or two to sink in.
These concepts generally get their first airing in Calculus courses, and many
students tend to really grasp them only after about their 2nd Calculus course.
From here, further discussion seems pointless, unless some of the actual data
and claims from Langendoen and Postal are put forth.
- Mark Goldfain
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 87 12:03 EST
From: S. Kulikowski <m0p@k.cc.purdue.edu>
Subject: Degenerate Lang Learning Experiment
since there has been a lot mail about language learning crystallization and
possible deprivation experiments, i recall reading about one such experiment
conducted by the ancient egyptians... probably the earliest language learning
experiment in history.
it seems that the priests were endlessly debating which language was the
root tongue from which all other languages descended. this would presumably
be the purest language of the gods and most proper for worship. to end this
debate, the pharoh ordered that a pair of twins be taken at birth and raised
in a temple by priests under a vow of silence. they were never to hear a
single word of contemporary languages, so whatever speech they developed would
be the purest language.
eventually the twins began to speak to each other. from what we know today
of twin idiolects this seems quit probable. apparently the first
recognizeable word they developed was 'phekros' which was phoenician for
'bread'. from this the egyptians concluded that phoenician was closest to the
root language of the gods.
i wish i could give you a reference to this experiment. perhaps some of the
folks in NLKR can do it. it has been quite a few years since i have found
child language to be profitable, so i cannot even recall the secondary
reference i read this in. i would love to track down the primary reference
from antiquity. this seems like a pretty sophisticated experimental design
for a culture as old as the pharonic dynasties.
stan
BITNET : XM0P @ PURCCVM (* note, zero, not Oh *)
SnailMail : Special Education; Purdue University; W. Lafayette, IN 47907
USENET : k.cc.purdue.edu!m0p
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 87 11:44 EST
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Degenerate Lang Learning Experiment
In article <2273@k.cc.purdue.edu> m0p@k.cc.purdue.edu (S. Kulikowski) writes:
>
> ...[description of ancient Egyptian experiment to determine first language]...
> i wish i could give you a reference to this experiment....
> ... i would love to track down the primary reference
>from antiquity. this seems like a pretty sophisticated experimental design
>for a culture as old as the pharonic dynasties.
> stan
The primary reference is Herodotus. A good secondary source is Fromkin
and Rodman's An Introduction to Language. Actually, many introductory
linguistics texts cite this as an amusing anecdote to historical
misconceptions about language. If such an experiment ever took place,
it is also a comment on the brutality of ancient cultures.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 87 17:06 EST
From: WATKINS@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu
Subject: 1) definite article; 2) Helen Keller; 3) syntax vs. semantics; 4)me
Comment about the definite article:
===================================
Joe Chapman remarks (9 Oct), "Originally the Greek article (ho, e, to) was
a demonstrative...."
Mark Brader suggests (6 Oct), "we may eventually lose the distinction
between `that' and `the'...."
In fact, "the" too was originally demonstrative; it is a worn-down form of
the Old English "that", which was then the same demonstrative it is now,*
and had a full range of genders and cases in both singular and plural. So
if "that" and "the" collapse together (which seems unlikely in the English
I hear/see), it would in fact be a reversion to an earlier structure!
*In a few places, however, it does seem to funtion simply a definite
article, even in the earliest recorded English. Presumably it was in
transition at the time. In any case, there was no definite article
available except this demonstrative.
Comment about Helen Keller:
===========================
I agree that Helen Keller cannot count as an example of a feral child. Not
only was she much loved and interacted with, as Elizabeth Zwicky points
out; she also learned language well before puberty, as [name lost--sorry!]
mentioned, and moreover was normal in sight and hearing until she was about
two, as Laurie Cavanaugh points out--AND, she had begun to learn to talk
before she lost her vision and hearing, to the point of knowing a few nouns.
One of the most moving moments in her autobiography (and the drama written
from it, "The Miracle Worker") comes when she connects the manual signs for
W-A-T-E-R with not only the water running over her hands, but also the baby
word "wa-wa" in her memory. In grasping the idea that the manual signs
could constitute a noun signifying the liquid she felt, she cried out
"wa-wa"--thus connecting the beginning of her language learning based on
signing with the vocal foundations already laid in her infancy.
As one who wallows in language for both work and pleasure, I find that
moment a tremendous thrill. The idea of being unable to communicate is far
more appalling to me than the idea of being blind, deaf, or both.
Comment on semantic vs. syntactic influence on thought:
=======================================================
Alan Lovejoy (22 Oct) says, " Since the syntax only specifies form, only
the semantics (the content) could possibly influence thought or opinion."
Assuming (nervously) that I understand this statement, I disagree with it.
Syntax--the structure of a language--affects habits of thought at least as
much as its content (semantics); and naive speakers are far less aware of
the effect. Consider, for example, the subject-verb element of syntax.
The syntactic assumption present in many European languages (and, I would
guess, most others, but I don't know) that every verb must have a subject
becomes, in many speakers' minds, a fact about the world rather than about
their language. Every event has a cause; every action has an actor. Even
extremely careful thinkers use this "fact about the world" without batting
an eyelash. Theologians and religious apologists use it to prove the
existence of God (how did the world get here unless someone or something
put it here? => God the Creator); Descartes used it to prove his own
existence in "I think, therefore I am"--thinking must have a thinker.
I certainly don't claim that this assumption about the world is necessarily
wrong, so I am open to the counter-argument that it springs from accurate
perception of reality rather than from syntax. But I do suspect that the
immediate obviousness of the assumption to many people has a lot to do with
the near-impossibility of making statements that do not include it.
Who's making these comments?
============================
As a newcomer to this list, I should probably introduce myself:
Karellynne Watkins, commonly known as "K"
I edit academic user documentation for the computer center of the
University of Arizona. I have taught college and community college
writing courses, and also the history of the English language. English is
the only language I can use with ease, but with a dictionary at my side I
can cope with written French. I have a pretty fair grounding in Latin, a
nodding acquaintance with German and Spanish, and a smattering of Hebrew.
In my student days, my department was always English; my focus was what I
called (for lack of a more official term) "stylistics," that is, _how_
language does what it does (expression/communication), especially
subjectively--that is, its connotative more than its denotative power.
I don't know that I'm particularly qualified to contribute to this list.
In spite of (because of?) studying and teaching some philology, I know
nothing of linguistics, and also no more of computers than I've picked up
in the course of editing various documentation. But the subject matter
fascinates me, and those who have no use for my remarks can always skip
over them. (Those remarks and the opinions they contain are, of course,
my own and not my employer's--or anyone else's, unless so marked.)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 87 12:43 EST
From: Greg Lee <lee@uhccux.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Practical effects of AI (speech)
In article <244@usl-pc.UUCP> jpdres10@usl-pc.UUCP (Green Eric Lee) writes:
>In message <267@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>, kfl@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU (Kai-Fu Lee) says:
>>In article <12@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM>, rolandi@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM (rolandi) writes:
>>> It would seem to me that the single greatest practical advancement for
>>> ...
>> So far, very few traditional AI techniques are used in, or work well
>> for speech recognition.
>
>Very few traditional AI techniques have resulted in much at all :-)
I suppose that applying AI to speech recognition would involve
making use of what we know about the perceptual and cognitive nature
of language sound-structures -- i.e. the results of phonology. I don't
know that this has ever been tried. If it has, could someone supply
references? I'd be very interested to know what has been done in this
direction.
Greg Lee, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 87 18:08 EST
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: MS DOS Software at LSA
The following is a copy of a bulletin being circulated to the membership
of the Linguistic Society of America:
=======================================================================
ATTENTION, SOFTWARE WRITERS!
SHOW OFF YOUR IBM-PC SOFTWARE AT THE LSA MEETING!
The CAL/LSA/IBM software review project will host a show-and-tell booth
in the publishers' display room at the LSA meeting this December. An
IBM-PC/2 model 30 and a PC/2 model 50 will be available for you to
demonstrate your software, and to swap notes with other software
developers and users.
ALSO AVAILABLE: informatin on submission, review and distribution of
software within the CAL/LSA/IBM project.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, WRITE TO
Barbara Robson
Center for Applied Linguistics
1118 22nd Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
=======================================================================
email: CAL@GUVAX.BITNET
This year's LSA meeting will be in San Francisco at the Hyatt Regency
Embarcadero from Sunday Dec. 27 to Wednesday Dec. 30. Anyone wishing
information about the LSA can send email to ZZLSA@GALLUA.BITNET.
Basically, the CAL is interested in language-oriented MS-DOS software.
It can serve any purpose--education, research, utility. The author(s)
of each program will sign an agreement with CAL/LSA spelling out the
price of the program, royalty rate to be paid the author, and the extent
to which the author will provide help to users.
RWOJCIK@BOEING.COM (Rick Wojcik)
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
*******************
