Author Topic: Parsing (Read 3587 times)

Jonathon · « **on:** April 21, 2008, 08:05:52 AM »

I just saw this cartoon on Language Log and felt like sharing.

In case it's unclear what the different parsings represent:

1. a school for girls that is pretty and little
2. a pretty school for little girls
3. a school for girls who are pretty and little
4. a pretty little (i.e., rather little) school for girls
5. a school for pretty little (rather little) girls

Neutros the Radioactive Dragon · « **Reply #1 on:** April 21, 2008, 08:30:28 AM »

I guess the rest of the sentence and paragraph that it would be included in would define things more.

You'd have to have context. There is no other way to understand it.

Nice illustration.

pooka · « **Reply #2 on:** April 21, 2008, 09:49:03 AM »

"Pretty" the adjective is not the same word as "pretty" the adverb.

Do we have a word yet for when you look at a word and it detaches from the phonomorpholical pigeonhole you normally keep it in? Because I'm looking at pretty now and wondering why it isn't pronounce "petty" with an r. I guess we could call it morphophonolocigal parallax. Unless you prefer phonomorphological parallax. I think most people call it "the word became a meaningless jumble of letters."

Jonathon · « **Reply #3 on:** April 21, 2008, 10:17:40 AM »

Quote

"Pretty" the adjective is not the same word as "pretty" the adverb.

Right. That's one of the reasons why this phrase has so many possible parsings.

Porter · « **Reply #4 on:** April 21, 2008, 11:59:23 AM »

Quote

"Pretty" the adjective is not the same word as "pretty" the adverb.

What's the distinction between two different words that have the same spelling and pronunciation and a single word which has multiple meanings?

Jonathon · « **Reply #5 on:** April 21, 2008, 12:10:37 PM »

I'm not sure that there's a clear delineation between the two.

Brinestone · « **Reply #6 on:** April 21, 2008, 12:19:20 PM »

I've been wondering this as well lately because I've been trying to figure out how many words Lego knows. Do I count the verb to button if I've already listed the noun button? What about different forms of the same verb, such as be? I mean, he learned one or two forms first, but now he's starting to use am and other forms correctly. Does he get no "credit" for that?

pooka · « **Reply #7 on:** April 21, 2008, 12:56:42 PM »

I say count them and be prepared to show your work if you get challenged on it? I mean, most mothers don't really understand that the different "to be" words are inflections of the same verb, so they'd count it as such. Though they probably wouldn't notice button being used as a noun and a verb.

Neutros the Radioactive Dragon · « **Reply #8 on:** April 25, 2008, 10:57:20 AM »

Commas, Turning Up, Everywhere

Quote

"This, is an unsettling trend," columnist William Sa,fire, told reporters. "We're seeing a collapse of the grammatical rules that have, held, the English language, together for, centuries."

rivka · « **Reply #9 on:** April 25, 2008, 11:04:23 AM »

dkw · « **Reply #10 on:** April 25, 2008, 11:27:57 AM »

Brinestone, are you counting just for curiousity, or did your doctor ask you to track? Our doctor asked how many words John knows at his last two appointments, but at the last one I just said, "I stopped counting at 250" and he was fine with that.

I think once a kid is correctly using the same word in different parts of a sentence and conjugating verbs those are more important trackers for language development than exact size of vocabulary. Unless Lego is still seeing a speech therapist for eating, or there's some other reason you need to track number of words.

Jonathon · « **Reply #11 on:** April 25, 2008, 12:22:43 PM »

I think she was just doing it out of curiosity.

dkw · « **Reply #12 on:** April 25, 2008, 03:30:33 PM »

Then I'd count both ways -- the "seperate words list" and the "every word/form" list.

Brinestone · « **Reply #13 on:** April 25, 2008, 06:30:56 PM »

I was just curious. And I like to make lists.

dkw · « **Reply #14 on:** April 25, 2008, 07:31:41 PM »

All the more reason to make 2.

goofy · « **Reply #15 on:** April 28, 2008, 07:44:55 AM »

Mean Length of Utterance is a more useful measurement than number of words.

Jonathon · « **Reply #16 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:11:57 AM »

And it has the added bonus of being nerdier.

pooka · « **Reply #17 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:34:51 AM »

My child I was most concerned about finally demonstrated a capacity for language by answering the question "do you like your hat" with "yes, I like it." (at age 3.3) Prior to that they were pretty much parrotting, and they could parrot quite impressively, but there was no grammatical processing apparent.

Brinestone · « **Reply #18 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:35:34 AM »

dkw · « **Reply #19 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:39:20 AM »

And now I learned a new word to add to my list!

pooka · « **Reply #20 on:** April 28, 2008, 08:40:34 AM »

I can't imagine keeping a list of words for no reason. Of course, I was too busy processing and cataloging my photographs I took every friday morning for the first year of their lives.