No subject

[A. Katz]

                    1. LIMIT ON PARTICPANTS

Noel Rude <nrude at ucinet.com> wrote:

>       So you're looking for theoretical and experimental work on the upper
>bound on sentence length.  Well, I don't do that kind of stuff, but you
>you might start with things like valence theory which, for example,
>suggests an upper limit of three arguments for any verb.  Then there's
>stacking up modifiers, and there's subordination.  Are there languages
>with built in structural limits here?  If so, does this corelate with
>cog-sci tests?

I don't normally do that sort of thing myself, which is why I'm
asking. I remember from my field work in Pangasinan that we tried to
cram as many participants as we could into a sentence, and there was
definitely a limit on the number you could get per clause.

(1)      si Anita impakan tomai mangga ed posa ed ketsara
        'Anita fed the mango to the cat with a spoon'

Example (1) was a possible sentence using a single clause, but I
believe the informant didn't feel as comfortable with it as with (2).

(2)    si Anita impakan toma i mangga ed posa ya inosaran to i ketsara
        'Anita fed the mango to the cat with a spoon'

In (2), the `with a spoon' part is in a separate clause: `ya inosaran
to i ketsara' meaning roughly `a spoon was used'.

It could be that one of the reasons (1) was awkward was that you had
to use `ed', an oblique marker, twice. I suppose that having a limited
number of separate case or focus marking devices in a language might
be one reason for the limit on participants per clause. But the fact
that the number of these markers is limited may be directly related
to cognitive constraints.

I'd be happy to hear from people who have done research on the subject
of grammatical limits on clause length and their relation to
processing requirements.

        2. UNIVERSAL LIMITS ON CODING VS. HUMAN LIMITS

NOEL RUDE also wrote:

>What I'd like to know is whether all this derives from the limited
>capacity of this idiosyncratic machine (our brain), or whether it is
>how the world really is.

I think there are limits on communication that are universal to all
abstract codes of information. I also believe that human cognitive
capacity is not anywhere near those limits. It's very important to
distinguish the two issues, lest we be tempted to make far flung
claims about the nature of our biological language processing
apparatus that are actually based on much more general principles.

SERGIO MEIRA wrote:

>I wondered if anyone knows whether real-world limitations for other
>coding systems also have consequences for their functioning and their
>structures-- i.e. any consequences of length constraints on DNA sequences
>for genetics?

I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that it's `yes'.

Interesting aside about novel sequences and DNA code. With the
exception of mono-zygotic twins, every human being has a unique
karyotype. (I'm talking about genetically normal specimens, not
possessing any sort of mutation.) The number of possible
`grammatical' combinations of genes that would produce a normal human
being is vast -- but finite! That number is so large that, given the
limits on population growth placed on human beings by the resources of
the earth, chances are the sun would die out before we had a random
repetition of a human being's genetic make-up.

By the same token, the finite number of available sentences in an
unchanging language is no practical bar to occurrence of novel
sentences. But I do think that population size has something to do
with the rate of change in the structure of a language. Small isolated
communities tend to be linguistically conservative. Languages spoken
by vast populations are more given to change. Is there a direct
relation between the number of sentences uttered in a language and its
rate of change?  If so, is this related to the upper bound on sentence
length, coupled with the desire for originality? Or is it just a
matter of the fabric of the language wearing down and transmuting with
use? Are there other possible explanations?


                         --Aya Katz

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Dr. Aya Katz, 3918 Oak, Brookfield, Illinois 60513-2019 (708) 387-7596
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