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<font face="Arial Unicode MS">Dear David,<br>
as far as I can see your assumption according to which<br>
</font>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid457856AB.4090700@eva.mpg.de"><font
face="Arial Unicode MS"> the "standard" definition [involves] a
"rewrite rule" with an identical symbol on either side of the arrow</font></blockquote>
<font face="Arial Unicode MS">is crucial for defining recursive
processes. As for syntactic issues, we most often have to deal with
some sort of Pythagoras Trees (see my
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/Blueprints.pdf">http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/Blueprints.pdf</a>, page 7 for an example).
That is, fractal structures become relevant (with exact, quasi or
statistical self-similarity, as fractals are conventionally
classified). The point is that such recursive structures are not mere
iterations or serializations (such as she ran ran ran... etc,), but
that the recursive structure is by itself more complex that its
mirrored 'parts'. Personally, I see the danger that the term recursive
(well-defined e.g. in mathematics) bcomes semantically over-strechted
within the world of linguistic terminology. In this sense, the term
does not seem to me to be<br>
</font>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid457856AB.4090700@eva.mpg.de"><font
face="Arial Unicode MS">sufficiently broad as to encompass all of the
[above] examples. </font></blockquote>
<font face="Arial Unicode MS">If recursion is a linguistic (!) topic at
all, we should find a general function/semantics of this hypothetic
strategy. Personally, I do not think that all the examples you have
given have in common a 'basic' function that constitutes by recursion
the semantics of the 'whole'. Things are different with respect to
cognition: here, we can safely assume that much of what cognition does
happens in terms of recursion (see e.g. my
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/Bolzano_I.pdf">http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/Bolzano_I.pdf</a>;
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/ICLC.pdf">http://www.ats.lmu.de/downloads/ICLC.pdf</a> [pp.8-13]). <br>
Very best wishes,<br>
Wolfgang</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut fuer Allgemeine und Typologische Sprachwissenschaft
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 Muenchen
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180-2486 (Sekr.)
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180-5343 (Office)
Fax : ++49-(0)89-2180-5345
E-mail:
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:W.Schulze@lrz.uni-muenchen.de">W.Schulze@lrz.uni-muenchen.de</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:schulze@fhv.umb.sk">schulze@fhv.umb.sk</a>
Web: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ats.lmu.de/profil/mitarbeiter/index.php">http://www.ats.lmu.de/profil/mitarbeiter/index.php</a></pre>
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