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[Sergio Meira S.C.O.]

>
> My focus was on the length limitation imposed on a sentence by the processing
> abilities of speakers and hearers. Sergio Meira observes: "Sentences are
> never infinite-- but they don't seem to be bounded either." My point is that
> if we are talking about natural language processing in real time -- they ARE
> bounded. (Although it is unclear precisely where the boundary lies, and it
> would require a considerable quantity of experimental data to pinpoint.)

How different is it to say that sentence length is bounded by the
processing abilities of speakers and hearers from the old claim that this
is a 'performance phenomenon'? And, to me, it seems fascinating that there
should be a limit, but that it is hard to pinpoint... I expect there to be
individual differences there, too. And the differences might also depend
on sentence structure: certain kinds of clauses will probably be more
difficult to lengthen infinitely (though they should be, theoretically,
just as 'lengthenable' as the others).

Sergio Meira
meira at ruf.rice.edu