Syntax Flashcards
Cookbook problem
“keywords” that provide information on greater; they give us an idea but we don’t find out any actual information
Compositionality
heirarchal way of stringing words together, linguistic messages are interpreted, layer by layer, in a way that depends on their structure
Syntax-directed translation
layered (recursive) structures of syntax allow us to communicate an infinity of meanings, using a few methods for building phrases with complex meanings out of phrases with simple ones
Syntax-directed translation in ordinary language
Steel bar prices = (steel bar) + prices
Stone traffic barriers = stone + (traffic barriers)
Can be really confusing though;
Process control block base register value =
(((process control) block)((base register) value))
English noun compounds also suffer from semantic vagueness in the relations between the words
-Peanut Oil v Hair Oil (one’s made from the other, one’s for the other); Snow Shoe v Horse Shoe
How do we reduce ambiguity?
special words or endings for making structural or semantic relationships among other words explicit (for, of, to, dealing with)
interpretation of word order (dung beetle v beetle dung)
patterns may vary from language to language
semantically-related words will tend to be closer together than semantically-unrelated words are; even when it’s not you can tell by the semantic relationship between words
Broca’s Aphasia
Trouble speaking fluently from lesion in frontal lobe, comprehension intact but speaking sucks