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The Chicago Tribune had an interesting article based on a piece in Wednesday's Nature journal. It seems that starlings can recognize the grammatical concept of adding new sounds to produce a more complex sound. This is similar to our adding new sounds in a sentence, thus creating different meanings. For example: "My dog has fleas" can be changed to: "My dog, who answers to the name of Murray and has a black and shiny coat, has fleas." The article goes on to say that MIT's linguist, Noam Chomsky, says that this inserting of words into sentences (center-embedding or recursive syntax pattern learning) is a boundary between humans and other creatures. However, the study in Nature was fairly persuasive that this isn't true. With food treats the starlings were able to distinguish patterns, such as "warble, warble, warble, rattle, rattle, rattle." Hey, if they can distinguish anapest rhythm, maybe we should refer these starlings to OEDILF.  | ||
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This "recursive grammar" is what linguists have long believed, separated man from beast--AP Further confirmation of the nihilists' contention that there's no distinct dividing line between any two concepts. Nothing is entirely anything and everything is partly something else | |||
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This is all sort of questionable. Center embedding especially. 1. The cat ran. 2. The cat the dog chased ran. 3. * The cat the dog the flea bit chased ran. 2 arrives from 1 be center embedding, as does 3 from 2. 3 is ungrammatical. As with all of this stuff, the human brain can only handle so much. | |||
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It depends on the language, too, not just the human brain: German speakers process and use extended structures of this kind all the time, seemingly effortlessly -- tho admittedly more in written than spoken contexts, for obvious reasons. (I have translated German patent applications in which virtually every sentence was a Schachtelsatz*, often nested 2 and 3 deep. Personally, I kind of like them -- in German; they don't come off so well in English. Although German is generally more prolix than English, a well-thought-out and constructed Schachtelsatz cann actually reduce a sentence's word count in the right context, bringing it in under the English equivalent's in some cases. Here is an infamous one, done purely as a joke and a Kopfzerbrecher (brain-breaker). The point is to punctuate the sentence properly with commas, so that it makes (more) sense: Die die die die die Äpfel gestohlen haben sollen anzeigen werden belohnt. It's interesting that the sentence 1) starts with the same word repeated 5 times (but NOT the same part of speech in each case), 2) contains but a single noun annd 3) ends with 6 verb forms in a row. Evern with the commas in -- viewing the commas as nested parentheses, sort of -- it takes a while to tease out the meaning. I think I'll sadistically leave this unclarified until enough people implore me on bended knee to explain. I know there are Wordcrafters out there whose linguistic skills include the German language. The closest equivalent in English might be: "That that is is that that is not is not." But this punctuation problem is not nearly as nested. David * Schachtelsatz -- A Schachtel is a little box or container, such as a matchbox, so imagine a series of such boxes, each slightly smaller than the one before, and nested within it -- like the Russian Kachina (?) dolls. | |||
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I'll give it a try, but I'm a bit of a comma minimalist in English. Die die, die die die, die Äpfel gestohlen haben, sollen anzeigen, werden belohnt. Am I close? I will of course leave the actual translation to the next person to come along. (It took me a few minutes to work it out even though every word is perfectly straight forward and familiar) "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Actually, are you sure there shouldn't be six "die"s at the start? Like this. Die die, die die die,die die Äpfel gestohlen haben, sollen anzeigen, werden belohnt. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Ah, I've got it Die, die die, die die Äpfel gestohlen haben, sollen anzeigen, werden belohnt. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Actually, Bob Hale (the lastmost post) came closest; his comma count was right, and just one commma was just one word off. BTW, there ARE only 5 "die"s, not 6. BTW, comma minimalists might be uncomfortable in German: not only is German kommafreudiger than English, it's also less discretionary ("You VILL place ze Komma hier!"). I wouldn't calll myself a comma maximalist, but I will always use one -- even if not grammatically mandated -- if it reduces ambiguity. OK, here it is: Die, die die, die die Äpfel gestohlen haben sollen, anzeigen, werden belohnt. Translation (close translation: Those who identify the ones who are thought to have stolen the apples will be rewarded. or (freer translation): Whoever rats on the presumptive apple thieves gets a reward. Word counts: German 12, English 16 -- and you can see above that the English character count is greater, even thhough the English has zero commas. Here are the Schächtel: Outer: Die ... werden belohnt > Those/they will be rewarded Middle: die die ... anzeigen > who identify the ones Inner: die die Äpfel gestohlen haben sollen > who are thought to have stolen the apples Oh, and if anyone needed it: That, that is, is; that, that is not, is not. (Would a comminimalist be tempted to eliminate 2 commas in this sentence?) David | |||
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I agonised over that one. I couldn't quite fit sollen into the meaning of the sentence and wasn't sure whether it belonged as you have it it or with anzeigen somehow forming "should indicate". I couldn't quite make sense of it either way and I guessed wrong. I realised straight after suggesting six "die"s that I was wrong, and why, but decided to let the post stand to show my thought processes. Not bad though, considering that I learned all my German in the classroom and haven't had a chance to speak it for about ten years now. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Bob, it's an nonstandard (but common) use of the "sollen" auxiliary, which in its standard usage corresponds to English "should" (and what the heck is the infinitive for that verb? To should? To ought to?): it means something like "is thought to have <done something>", "is said to have ...", "is believed to have ..." As with the other auxiliaries (müssen, dürfen, können etc.), word order determines meaning: Sie haben es tun sollen > They ought to have done it Sie sollen es getan haben > It's rumo(u)red they did it Sie haben es tun müssen > They had to do it (were forced to) Sie müssen es getan haben > They must have done it (it couldn't have been anyone else) OK, school's out ... David der möchtegern-Dozent | |||
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Well, that discussion was a little out of my league.  Nathan Bierma, in his excellent language column, writes an about an opposing view of the starling study. A Yale linguist, Stephen Anderson and author of "Dr. Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language" (which I must buy), thinks that Gentner and his colleagues have grossly over-interpreted the study. He says that while the starlings could recognize patterns, it isn't similar at all to the recursive nature of human language. He says there is no evidence that the patterns the starlings did learn had any meaning. He says: "The message of a starling's song is always the same: when a male starling sings, whatever the song, the message to other males is 'This land in my land!' and to females, 'Come over ot my place!'." (Not sure how that differs from men and women! )Seriously, though, I think Anderson makes a good point. One does have to be careful not to overly interpret research reports. It has long been known that pattern recognition is common in animals, and that seems to be all that study showed. | |||
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