Words and Rules
"Language comes so naturally to us that it is easy to forget what a strange and miraculous gift it is."
Chapter 1
The Infinite Library
There are two tricks behind our ability to fill one another´s head with many different ideas.
Language is acquired by a special rule-forming mechanism in the mind. Regular past tense verbs are predictable, while irregulars are not. Irregulars are unpredictable in form and restricted to a list because they are memorized and retrieved as individual words.
In the discussion of Plato, I agree with what Hermogenes says: “Nothing has a name by nature, only by usage and custom.” I believe that we have named things because we need them to have a name. They could have been names various things, but one was chosen and that is why things have a specific name.
Within the rule 2 of rules that rules are symbolic, he mentions Dr.Seuss´s word. I wonder if James Joyce´s Finnegan’s Wake can count like that?
What is the reason for irregular verbs, and why couldn’t they just make it simple and ad –ed to the past tense?
There are two tricks behind our ability to fill one another´s head with many different ideas.
- Words: memorized arbitrary pairing between a sound and a meaning.
- Rules: inside everyone’s head there is a code/protocol that specifies how words can be arranged into meaningful combinations. 1. Rules are productive. 2. Symbols contained by the rules are symbolic and abstract. 3. Rules are combinatorial.
Language is acquired by a special rule-forming mechanism in the mind. Regular past tense verbs are predictable, while irregulars are not. Irregulars are unpredictable in form and restricted to a list because they are memorized and retrieved as individual words.
In the discussion of Plato, I agree with what Hermogenes says: “Nothing has a name by nature, only by usage and custom.” I believe that we have named things because we need them to have a name. They could have been names various things, but one was chosen and that is why things have a specific name.
Within the rule 2 of rules that rules are symbolic, he mentions Dr.Seuss´s word. I wonder if James Joyce´s Finnegan’s Wake can count like that?
What is the reason for irregular verbs, and why couldn’t they just make it simple and ad –ed to the past tense?
Chapter 2
Dissection by Linguistics
Lexicon: stored entries for words.
Morphology: team of rules that combine words and parts of words into bigger words.
Sintax: a set of rules that combine words into phrases and sentences.
Semantics: interface between language and mind.
Phonology: interface between language and the mouth and ear.
Listeme: an item that has to me memorized as part of a ist (words, phrases, clichés).
Pluralizing depends on how people taciltly analyze things: as a word or as a phrase. In a word, plurals are at the end. In a phrase, can be in the middle.
Morphology:
Suffix -0: present tense, infinitive, imperative, subjunctive.
Suffixing: progressive participle, present participle, verbal noun, verbal adjective.
Suffix –s: present tense (3rd person singular).
-ed: past tense, perfect participle, passive participle. Passive participle.
I had never notices that sometimes when we use –ed we pronounce it like a t.
Lexicon: stored entries for words.
Morphology: team of rules that combine words and parts of words into bigger words.
Sintax: a set of rules that combine words into phrases and sentences.
Semantics: interface between language and mind.
Phonology: interface between language and the mouth and ear.
Listeme: an item that has to me memorized as part of a ist (words, phrases, clichés).
Pluralizing depends on how people taciltly analyze things: as a word or as a phrase. In a word, plurals are at the end. In a phrase, can be in the middle.
Morphology:
- By derivation:
Suffix -0: present tense, infinitive, imperative, subjunctive.
Suffixing: progressive participle, present participle, verbal noun, verbal adjective.
- By inflection:
Suffix –s: present tense (3rd person singular).
-ed: past tense, perfect participle, passive participle. Passive participle.
I had never notices that sometimes when we use –ed we pronounce it like a t.
Chapter 3
Broken Telephone
Possessive attaches a phrase to a word.
Irregular nouns:
“Irregular verbs… they are a vivid demonstration of how the human mind, reacting to the events of history, reshapes a language over centuries and millennia.”
Pinker´s explanation for irregulars: people didn’t like to put –ed on a verb that already ends in t or d. verbs devoice their final consonant d into t (bend-bent)
Shortening a vowel is a natural reaction when material is added to the end of a syllable. (Bone – bonfire, wide – width, wise – wisdom)
I had never seen the evolution of language as a broken telephone. I have always found it interesting because I find it amazing how languages can change, in a not so large amount of time. But even though we are not talking like Tarzan, I do believe that people in the 17th / 18th century had a fancier language and more sophisticated that has slowly been declining, until it reached the point as how we speak today. I think it might because our system 2 is to lazy and doesn’t want to think anymore.
Possessive attaches a phrase to a word.
Irregular nouns:
- Present progressive suffix – ing (breaking).
- Possessive s (The cat in the hat´s pajamas).
- Irregular plurals in nouns (man – men, woman – women, child - children).
- Regular –s ending change their consonant from unvoiced to voiced (calf – calves, leaf – leaves)
- Nouns that take Latin or Greek plurals (alga – algae, alumnus – alumni, genus – genera)
“Irregular verbs… they are a vivid demonstration of how the human mind, reacting to the events of history, reshapes a language over centuries and millennia.”
Pinker´s explanation for irregulars: people didn’t like to put –ed on a verb that already ends in t or d. verbs devoice their final consonant d into t (bend-bent)
Shortening a vowel is a natural reaction when material is added to the end of a syllable. (Bone – bonfire, wide – width, wise – wisdom)
I had never seen the evolution of language as a broken telephone. I have always found it interesting because I find it amazing how languages can change, in a not so large amount of time. But even though we are not talking like Tarzan, I do believe that people in the 17th / 18th century had a fancier language and more sophisticated that has slowly been declining, until it reached the point as how we speak today. I think it might because our system 2 is to lazy and doesn’t want to think anymore.
Chapter 4
In single Combat
Regular forms are generated by rule, irregular forms are memorized by role.
People have the urgency of changing regular words into irregular words.
When the symbols stand for words and the rules arrange them into phrases and sentences, we have grammar.
When the symbols stand for concepts and the rules string them into chains of inference, we have logic.
Irregular verbs defy the suggestion that they are memorized by rule because they show three kinds of patterning:
Patterns, the mind seeks patterns liked described in Thinking Fast and Slow.
The rules for irregulars are part of a larger set of rules that capture the sound pattern of a language (according to Chomsky).
So irregular verbs are not really connected to phonological rules?
It is interesting how the pronunciation of the English language has changed over time, but the writing of certain words is still the same. At least that is the case in English and Spanish. It is like if the written language never got up to date.
Regular forms are generated by rule, irregular forms are memorized by role.
People have the urgency of changing regular words into irregular words.
When the symbols stand for words and the rules arrange them into phrases and sentences, we have grammar.
When the symbols stand for concepts and the rules string them into chains of inference, we have logic.
Irregular verbs defy the suggestion that they are memorized by rule because they show three kinds of patterning:
- Stem-past similarity: Irregular part-tense forms are similar in sound to their base forms (drink-drank)
- Change-change similarity: the change from stem to past in one verb is similar to the change from stem to past in another verb.
- Stem-stem pattern: similarity in sound.
Patterns, the mind seeks patterns liked described in Thinking Fast and Slow.
The rules for irregulars are part of a larger set of rules that capture the sound pattern of a language (according to Chomsky).
So irregular verbs are not really connected to phonological rules?
It is interesting how the pronunciation of the English language has changed over time, but the writing of certain words is still the same. At least that is the case in English and Spanish. It is like if the written language never got up to date.
- Rumelhart & McClelland’s pattern associator memory: instead of associating a word with a word, it associates the properties of a word with properties of another word and becomes generalized by similarity. (Pattern associator memory stores both regular and irregular forms).
- Chomsky & Halle`s theory of generative phonology: a battery of rules that generates both regular and irregular forms.
- Prince & Pinker`s proposal: regular verbs are computed by a rule that combines a symbol for a verb stem with a symbol for the suffix. Irregular verbs are pairs of words retrieved from the mental dictionary, a part of memory.
Chapter 5
Word Nerds
How words and rules pop into mind as we use language in present time.
Interesting how one thinks that the most common verbs used are regular, when the verbs we use the most are irregular.
The most uncommon words make people feel unsure about their past tense and that is why their past tense changes often.
Blocking principle: the irregular form blocks the rule (add-ed) to state a past-tense irregular.
Lexical decision: in order to try to tell the moment at which people are willing to say that a words is a words and not just something that looks like a word. (repetition / priming)
How words and rules pop into mind as we use language in present time.
Interesting how one thinks that the most common verbs used are regular, when the verbs we use the most are irregular.
The most uncommon words make people feel unsure about their past tense and that is why their past tense changes often.
Blocking principle: the irregular form blocks the rule (add-ed) to state a past-tense irregular.
Lexical decision: in order to try to tell the moment at which people are willing to say that a words is a words and not just something that looks like a word. (repetition / priming)
Chapter 6
Of Mice and Men
Rules apply when memory fails, that is why we have so many new past-tense words or why people are always changing them.
Semantic stretch theory: The intuition that language is a direct conversion from meaning and states that the extra input features are semantic. (to give an extended or metaphorical meaning). Semantic stretch has no effect on a word that is past-tense or plural (bogeymen, muskoxen)
Review:
An irregular plural or past-tense form is a root linked to another root: sink to sank. But when a word is rootless and disconnected from inflected forms stored in memory, it is not left without a past-tense or plural; the rule rushes and turns it into a regular form by adding a suffix.
Happens in:
Grammatical rules: the point is to define new combinations in which the meaning of the whole can be computed from the meanings of the parts and the ways they are arranged.
Eponyms: comes from a name Mickey Mouses (instead of Mickey Mice)
Kiparsky`s explanation:
Rules apply when memory fails, that is why we have so many new past-tense words or why people are always changing them.
Semantic stretch theory: The intuition that language is a direct conversion from meaning and states that the extra input features are semantic. (to give an extended or metaphorical meaning). Semantic stretch has no effect on a word that is past-tense or plural (bogeymen, muskoxen)
Review:
- Words are stored in the mental dictionary, not as haphazard bundles of info, but in a standard format called root.
- Rules don’t just throw words of parts of words together, they combine their properties.
- Essence of word : rule
- Essence of rule: head
An irregular plural or past-tense form is a root linked to another root: sink to sank. But when a word is rootless and disconnected from inflected forms stored in memory, it is not left without a past-tense or plural; the rule rushes and turns it into a regular form by adding a suffix.
Happens in:
- Onomatopoeia (beeped)
- Quotations (yes dear`s)
- Based on a name (Julia Child´s)
- Foreign borrowing (cappuccinos)
- Connected by artificial means (lip-synched, PC´s)
Grammatical rules: the point is to define new combinations in which the meaning of the whole can be computed from the meanings of the parts and the ways they are arranged.
- Rules of syntax: build sentences and phrases out of words.
- Rules of morphology: build complex words out of simple words and bits of words such as prefixes and suffixes.
- Regularizations:
Eponyms: comes from a name Mickey Mouses (instead of Mickey Mice)
- Plurdia tantum: jitters, shenanigans, amends.
Kiparsky`s explanation:
- Irregulars are roots and can be the input to the process of word formation.
- Regulars are the products of rules and have to be the output of the process of word formation.
Chapter 7
Kids Say the Darnedest Things
People/kids always make the same mistakes when young. Why is it that kids talk the same and out of a sudden they can talk regularly (adding –ed to everything and s as a plural of most nouns)
Its amazing how kids learn the right words for past or for plural, but when they learn the rule, they go back in time, or it is like if their progress is reversed and then they start adding –ed and –s to every word, even when they don’t need it.
Language instinct: deducing that words are not correct.
The simplest conceivable hypothesis of how children differ from adults?
They have not lived as long. Human memory profits from repetition. This combines blocking (linguistics) with memory improvement by repetition (psychology).
Irregular forms are not predictable, so the only way to know them is to have heard them before and remember them. (solution to why kids way singed and bleeded).
People/kids always make the same mistakes when young. Why is it that kids talk the same and out of a sudden they can talk regularly (adding –ed to everything and s as a plural of most nouns)
Its amazing how kids learn the right words for past or for plural, but when they learn the rule, they go back in time, or it is like if their progress is reversed and then they start adding –ed and –s to every word, even when they don’t need it.
Language instinct: deducing that words are not correct.
The simplest conceivable hypothesis of how children differ from adults?
They have not lived as long. Human memory profits from repetition. This combines blocking (linguistics) with memory improvement by repetition (psychology).
Irregular forms are not predictable, so the only way to know them is to have heard them before and remember them. (solution to why kids way singed and bleeded).
Chapter 8
The Horrors of the German Language
We find different languages because people move apart and lose touch. So did all languages come from the same one?
What do all languages have in common and how do they differ?
All languages have a stock of morphemes and a set of conventions for assembling them into meaningful combinations such as complex words, phrases and sentences. Words can accept suffixes, prefixes and insertions. All languages have irregularities.
A language that inflicts irregular forms on its speakers a majority of the time is German.
In German, verbs have three forms: infinitive, preterit and participle. Irregulars, as in English, are stores in an associative memory.
I had no idea German was so like English. Just take a look at singen-sang-gesungen. (sing-sang-sung). German works like the English –ed. The Germans also use something like the English –s in most instances.
“A language is the product of generations of learners and could reflect, rather than shape, their tastes and propensities.”
We find different languages because people move apart and lose touch. So did all languages come from the same one?
What do all languages have in common and how do they differ?
All languages have a stock of morphemes and a set of conventions for assembling them into meaningful combinations such as complex words, phrases and sentences. Words can accept suffixes, prefixes and insertions. All languages have irregularities.
A language that inflicts irregular forms on its speakers a majority of the time is German.
In German, verbs have three forms: infinitive, preterit and participle. Irregulars, as in English, are stores in an associative memory.
I had no idea German was so like English. Just take a look at singen-sang-gesungen. (sing-sang-sung). German works like the English –ed. The Germans also use something like the English –s in most instances.
“A language is the product of generations of learners and could reflect, rather than shape, their tastes and propensities.”
Chapter 9
The Black Box
We can’t exactly pinpoint were our memory is in the brain. It could be in two or more parts, scattered all over the whole.
Brains have two hemispheres:
Most right-handed people: language (grammar) is on the left.
Central sulcus subdivides each hemisphere in two.
I guess the tests of Agrammatism and Anomia prove the words and rules theory. The people who have agrammatism can’t add –ed or –s to a word (but still know irregular verbs), meaning that their rule part of the brain is damaged. While the people with anomia don’t remember words (but can conjugate), their part of the brain which contains memory is ruined.
We can’t exactly pinpoint were our memory is in the brain. It could be in two or more parts, scattered all over the whole.
Brains have two hemispheres:
Most right-handed people: language (grammar) is on the left.
Central sulcus subdivides each hemisphere in two.
- Front bank: motorstip = frontal lobe (carries out prerequisites to action)
- Rear bank: somatosensory strip = parietal, occipital and temporal lobe (registers senses)
I guess the tests of Agrammatism and Anomia prove the words and rules theory. The people who have agrammatism can’t add –ed or –s to a word (but still know irregular verbs), meaning that their rule part of the brain is damaged. While the people with anomia don’t remember words (but can conjugate), their part of the brain which contains memory is ruined.
Chapter 10
A Digital Mind in an Analog World
Objective of the book:
“The ingredients of a language are words and rules. Words in the sense of memorized links between sounds and meaning, rules in the sense of operations that assemble the words into combinations whose meaning can be computed from the meanings of the words and the way they are arranged.”
Two principles of language:
Objective of the book:
“The ingredients of a language are words and rules. Words in the sense of memorized links between sounds and meaning, rules in the sense of operations that assemble the words into combinations whose meaning can be computed from the meanings of the words and the way they are arranged.”
Two principles of language:
- A memory system that stores and retrieves words (arbitrary system)
- A system of symbolic computation that generates grammatical combinations of words (infinite use of a finite media).