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From: lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.ai
Subject: Re: Langendoen and Postal (posted by: Berke)
Message-ID: <1054@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 06:42:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uhccux.1054
Posted: Tue Nov  3 06:42:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 04:08:40 EST
References: <8941@shemp.UCLA.EDU> <9445@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee)
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)
Lines: 33
Summary: sentences infinite, length finite
Xref: mnetor sci.lang:1644 comp.ai:1051

In article <9445@ut-sally.UUCP> turpin@ut-sally.UUCP (Russell Turpin) writes:
>In article <8941@shemp.UCLA.EDU>, berke@CS.UCLA.EDU writes:
>> I just read this fabulous book over the weekend, called "The Vastness
>> of Natural Languages," by D. Terence Langendoen and Paul M. Postal.
>> ...
>
>Let me switch contexts. I have not read the above-mentioned book,
>but it seems to me that this claim is just plain wrong. I would
> ...
>also excludes infinite languages. The reason is that there will
>never be more than a finite number of people (ET's included), and
> ...
>Russell

Although the number of sentences in a natural language might be
finite, the most appropriate model for human language processing
might reasonably assume the contrary.  Suppose, for instance, that
we wish to compare the complexities of various languages with
regard to how easily they could be used by humans, and that we
take the number of phrase structure rules in a phrase structure
grammar as a measure of such complexity.  A grammar to generate
100,000 sentences of the pattern "Oh boy, oh boy, ...!" would be
much more complex than a grammar to generate an infinite number
of such sentences.  And the pattern seems easy enough to learn ...

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