Rules vs. lists

David Tuggy david_tuggy at sil.org
Mon Jun 30 12:48:29 UTC 2008


Any number that language users come up with, in either case. 
More-general and less-general rules, and whether or not there is one, or 
a set of, global generalizations to be made.

--David Tuggy

Rob Freeman wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I was glad to find the recent rule vs. list discussion. I like to see
> fundamental issues debated.
>
> In line with my own particular interests I hope I can shine a new perspective.
>
> Can anyone tell me, if the utterances of natural language are thought
> of primarily as a list, how many ways might the elements of that list
> be generalized to abstract one or other rule?
>
> That is to say, how many rules might a list of elements define in
> principle? Also how many partial rules, if the requirement of global
> generalizability is dropped?
>
> -Rob Freeman
>
>   



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