Novelty

[Reuben Woolley]

A. Katz wrote:
>
> Jon Aske <Jon.Aske at SALEM.MASS.EDU> on Tue, 23 Jun 1998 19:23:36 -0400
> wrote:
>
> >I think nobody would disagree with the claim that we all learned in
> >Linguistics 101 that the number of possible sentences in a language
> >is infinite.
>
> I didn't respond immediately, because I wanted to see if anyone else
> would disagree or have any comments on this point.
>
> The number of possible sentences in a language is infinite, only if
> we assume the following:
>
>       a) that there is no upper bound on the length of a possible
>          sentence
>
>       and
>
>       b) that there isn't a rate of historical change associated with
> repeated use that would eventually lead to the evolution of a form of
> the language that is not intelligible to the speakers of the earlier
> sentences.
>

Even if we fix an upper bound to the length of a possible sentence based
on comprehensibility and varying from one individual to another, I would
still suggest that the number of possible sentences in a *living*
language is infinite.

The discussion so far only seems to be concerned with grammatical
generation and has not taken lexis into account at all. What certainly
is elementary knowledge is that new words are introduced continually and
old words are given new meanings. Therefore, to have a limited upper
bound to the number of possible sentences would mean that, as well as
trying to measure the limit of intelligiblity, we would have to fix the
language at some moment in time. I can't see that there is any interest
in doing that.

Reuben Woolley
c/ Almagro, 5
50004 Zaragoza
Spain