Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info>: > >> Marko Rauhamaa wrote: >> >>> The natural language has a rigorous grammar plus a lexicon that includes >>> a number of idioms. Nobody has so far been able to codify a natural >>> language completely because the rigorous grammar consists of maybe >>> 10,000 rules. >> >> If nobody has codified the rigorous grammar, how do they know it is >> rigorous? > > Even a five-year-old will immediately spot grammar mistakes (and let you > know about them!).
That doesn't make it rigorous. That just means that there are rules, and five-years olds know some of the rules. There may be ambiguities in the rules. There could be sentences where no rule applies, or multiple contradictory rules. Children go through a period of language acquisition where they over-generalise rules, saying things like "I eated the biscuit". Amusingly, there are at least some reports of children getting angry when their parents copy those over-generalisations, saying words to the effect of "No Daddy, I say eated, you don't!" This suggests that they know that the rule is wrong even when they say it, yet they continue to say it. This in turn suggests that there are multiple parts of the brain involved in grammar, and they aren't always in sync. Adults also commit hyper-correction. Anyone who has said a sentence like "The dog barked at my daughter and I" is being ungrammatical. Cross out the second party, and you are left with: "The dog barked at I" which is clearly wrong. And there are underspecified rules too. What is the plural of octopus? No fair looking it up in the dictionary. [...] > Whatever it is, your brain will recognize its native language. You never > make a grammar mistake that you don't spot yourself right away. Of course people make grammar mistakes that they don't spot. If you're interested in this topic, I can strongly recommend Steven Pinker's book "Words And Rules". -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
