Eric, Something else I need to mention: I'm not mathematically inclined in any sense of the word. More precisely, you could take what I know about this kind of math, pour it into a thimble, and still have room for your foot. I'll take a look at the paper you linked, but if it's as math- theory-intensive as the paragraph below, I can just about guarantee it'll sail way over my head.
On 19 Jun 2010 at 15:56, Eric Inman wrote: > Dave, > > Here's a quick example. If you have rules which take A to a1, a2, > and a3 in > any order, you would have six (3 factorial, or 3!) rules: A -> a1 a2 > a3, A-> > a1 a3 a2, etc. The same if you had rules which take B to b1, b2 and > b3 in > any order. Then, if the components of A and B could be freely > intermixed > with each other, you would need 6! = 720 rules to describe that. In > this > example there is total freedom of word order, which probably rarely > occurs, > but hopefully it serves to show how quickly the number of > permutations could > rise even when the amount of freedom is less than 100%. > > Doing some quick googling I found that freedom of word order does > present a > significant issue in syntax description. See for example "Syntax > Description > of Free Word Order Languages" > (http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/C/C90/C90-3056.pdf). > > I'll rephrase my original question. Would Biblical Hebrew be > considered a > free word-order language or, if not, a language in which there is > more > freedom in word order than in English? If either case is true, are > there any > allowances that should be made for this when embarking on a > generative > grammar? From quickly scanning the few papers that I googled it > looks like > there should be. > > Eric > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > [email protected] > Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 1:45 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Generation grammar and b-hebrew > > Eric, > Obviously I can't speak for anybody else, but I could use some > examples to > illustrate what you mean. > > On 19 Jun 2010 at 6:55, Eric Inman wrote: > > > Here's why I think word order can be a problem. It's true that if > you > > have multiple word orders then you can define multiple rules. If > you > > have a unit of speech where the next-level components can occur in > > different orders, then providing the multiple rules to represent > the > > different orders is not a problem. > > > > Where I think there might be a problem is when you have two or > more > > units of speech whose components are intermingled with each other > and > > can be intermingled in many different ways. It's true that you can > > still define multiple rules to handle this situation, but the > problem > > is that the number of rules required to represent all of the > > permutations can get out of hand. > > At this point it appears that a generative grammar ceases to be a > > useful model for describing the language, and I think there are > > probably other models that would be more useful. I think this > > situation arises in Greek but I don't know if it would arise in > > Hebrew. > > > > I think whether or not this issue is premature would depend on > whether > > or not this is already known to be a problem in Hebrew. If it is, > then > > bringing it up now might allow people to avoid repeating steps > that > > have already been taken and instead move more directly to seeking > a > > better approach to handling what would be a known problem. > > > > What do you think? > > > Dave Washburn > > http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur > _______________________________________________ > b-hebrew mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew > Dave Washburn http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
