LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.05 (03) [E]

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 05 December 2005 * Volume 02
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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.05 (01) [E]

Re Sandy's "English orthographuc reform, here we come! Eat flaming death,
evil apostrophic minions!!!" he cried, as he donned his paper hat and rode
away on his hobbyhorse. Jacqueline

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From: Paul Tatum <ptatum at blueyonder.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2005.12.05 (01) [E]

hello everybody
I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm harping on about this subject.

Sandy Fleming wrote:

> Simple would very that be!
> 
> Of problem-the course can the gibberish am come, understand listeners
> you not plus.
> 
Except these are not English sentences and so don't qualify as new 
sentences. And they are not english sentences because they do not follow 
the rules of english sentence construction. They use English words, 
spelling and punctuation, but they do not use English syntax. It would 
be difficult to criticise their correctness using an exemplar based 
approach, while it very easy to say why they are not English if you 
allow syntactical analysis.

> As I said, we can, but normally we don't!

But we do, probably the majority of sentences we utter each day are new 
sentences that we have never heard or spoken before. Each language has 
an infinite number of sentences. The nursery rhyme 'this is the house 
that jack built' is one sentence that is potentially infinite, as is 
'there was an old woman who swallowed a fly'. Start with any simple 
sentence 'Blue begonias sit in chilly chambers'. A new sentence can be 
created simply by adding an 'and-clause' 'Blue begonias sit in chilly 
chambers and brown bears bug bitter barnacles' and that sentence can be 
extended by adding another 'and-clause' ('Blue begonias sit in chilly 
chambers and brown bears bug bitter barnacles and donald duck dances 
dizzily on day-glow dados' any one?) and so on ad infinitum. You need an 
infinite number of exemplars to exemplify an infinite number of 
sentences, but you can describe an infinite number of sentences with 
just a finite set of rules, in this case just one: a sentence can be 
composed of a sentence joined to another sentence by the word 'and'. 
There again, if exemplar based language analysis works and you can ditch 
syntax, then I would go ahead and write your books now before someone 
steals your ideas!

Yours, Paul Tatum.

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