WHAT IS LANGUAGE Columbia University什么是语言哥伦比亚大学.pptVIP

What Is Language? Muscle movements Sound production Phones Phonemes Morphemes Words: - learned one at a time Sentences: -not learned one at a time  Basic requisite of a grammar:   How to explain the ability to create an infinite number of sentences from a finite number of words? Chained Behavior (Bar Pressing): Objections To Chaining Theory Finite-state grammar Transitional probabilities say nothing about meaning Embedding Ambiguous sentences How Chaining Theory Would Explain the Following Sentence? “That man has eaten the bread.” Possible sequences that can be generated from “words”, A, B C: Without replacement: A B C A C B B A C B C A C A B C B A Suppose we arbitrarily restrict language to sentences of 10 words.  · There are 450,000 English words.  · Number of 2-word sentences: (450,000)2 = 202,000,000,000 = 211 · Number of 3-word sentences: (450,000)3 = 91,125,000,000,000,000 = 9115.  · Consider only grammatical sentences.  · Assume only one in a million was grammatical. i.e., 106.  · There would then be only 91,125, 000, 000 = 919 grammatical sentences.  · Suppose we read one word/sec., reading at a rate of 24 hrs/day, 365 days/year, it would take 2,887 years to read all possible three-word sentences. Four-word sentences: 1,299,150,000 years. Objections To Chaining Theory Finite-state grammar Transitional probabilities say nothing about meaning Embedding Ambiguous sentences Objections To Chaining Theory Finite-state grammar Transitional probabilities say nothing about meaning Embedding Ambiguous sentences Embedded Sentences The girl sat down. The girl who wore a hat sat down. The girl who wore a hat who smiled sat down. The girl who wore a hat who smiled who had a cold sat down. The girl who wore a hat who smiled who had a cold who missed the train sat down. The girl who wore a hat who smiled who had a cold who missed the train who got a new job sat down. Objectio