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Comment by dgellow | Hacker News Reader

The title is a bit clickbaity, but some parts of the article were interesting (there is a lot of noise though, if what you’re looking for are technical details).

In case some of you are interested by the “merge” structure they mention, you can look for “Minimalist Program”, by Chomsky and others. That’s where it comes from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalist_program

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relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2043/

I've worked with some clever animals, and agree they didn't show any signs of recursive embedding (they "lex" but don't "parse"), but must note that modern anglophone humans are relatively embedding-impoverished compared with prior centuries, a reduction which we can observe in comparing the number of stack levels necessary to parse the subordinations and coordinations[1] in the dendritic periods of the 1st president of the US with the number necessary to parse the sequential utterances of the most recent.

[1] https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/inaugtx...

> "In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no separate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world."

I'm not a linguist but that to me is more a list (a sequence of qualifiers) than a recursion (a nesting). However, a quick browse shows I'm wrong so for those who also aren't sure

https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/3252/what-is...

https://www.thoughtco.com/recursion-grammar-1691901

I'm not sure that those links completely show that you're wrong. The example you're replying to appears deeper than it is because each nested element is quite broad, so the absolute depth is not as much as it might seem (I think).

Agreed, there are listings, but even they are not always just a flat unary tree. For instance, there's the structure within the listing of:

    (no ((local prejudices) or (attachments))
     no (separate views)
     nor (party animosities))

which is itself embedded within

    ... will misdirect ...
    as on one side ... so, on another, ...
    etc.

Try diagramming that sentence. (base: "I behold pledges") Even just the last few words of that sentence:

    ... exemplified by
        all the attributes
          which can
            win the affections
              of its Citizens, and
           command the respect
              of the world.

have more structure than the pair of sentences:

    On @foxandfriends
      Now

    Enjoy

Re: the XKCD strip

While "carhouse" may not be a thing, you might be surprised to learn of the existence of a "car condo" (or "motor condo"): https://www.irongatemotorcondos.com/

Yes, really. This business not only exists, but is thriving.

I've been working on a conlang based on word vectors and "morphemes are phonemes", a very tight coupling between the syllables and semantics (it's an abugida but written in ascii). Gu=earth, va=motion, mu=machine, things like that. Initially there was no requirement for order of the morphemes, guvamu=muvagu=vagumu, whatever sounded best. Then I ran smack into, "what's the difference between a ground vehicle (car) and an earth-mover?"

So I needed recursion and a bit more grammar to make this hierarchical word fusion work better.

This reminds me a lot of Chinese. Many of the words are 2-3 character descriptions. Eg the word for machine is used as a suffix for flying machine (airplane), thinking machine (computer), washing machine etc. For historical reasons related to steam engines, the word for train roughly translates as fire machine. Another good example is how ying can be combined with the character for land to describe England (ying guo), further combined with people to describe the English (ying guo ren), or combined with the character for writing to describe English (ying wen). The same thing works for France (fa guo), Germany (de guo), America (mei guo) etc. It also works with the generic word for foreign. Foreign country (wai guo), foreigner (wai guo ren), foreign language (wai wen). My personal favorite is the word for faucet translates as "water dragons head".

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