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I disagree. Field linguistics is all about deducing the underlying rules of a language from a language sample. Maybe those rules are very complex — perhaps even

by bradrn 5y ago

I disagree. Field linguistics is all about deducing the underlying rules of a language from a language sample. Maybe those rules are very complex — perhaps even unpredictable, or irregular — but they can be described. The best reference grammars can be thousands of pages long in an attempt to describe all these rules (I always recommend [0] as a particularly good, open-access example). Based on the samples, the Linguistics Olympiad presents exactly the same sorts of problems, just in a reduced form. > Separately, there's also the broader issue that languages are primarily what we speak, to which the writing conventions are secondary. In these examples, we're only looking at how things are written, which is yet another filter that gives an incomplete view. This is wrong also. If you look carefully at the example questions from the Olympiad, you will see that those languages without a conventional orthography are written using the International Phonetic Alphabet [1], meaning that the texts are a direct transcription of spoken words, with little or no ‘filter’. [0] https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295 https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabe...

4cao 5y ago
> Maybe those rules are very complex — perhaps even unpredictable, or irregular — but they can be described. Sounds very much like "exceptions" to me then. >> In these examples, we're only looking at how things are written, which is yet another filter that gives an incomplete view. > This is wrong also. Does the linked PDF include any embedded audio material? If not, how could what I wrote be possibly wrong? > If you look carefully at the example questions from the Olympiad, you will see that those languages without a conventional orthography are written using the International Phonetic Alphabet I looked carefully at the example questions before posting my original comment already, and I only saw the IPA being used in a single footnote in one place (page 11). Have we been looking at the same source material? https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf
- xmprt 5y ago
  A lot of Chemistry and Biology is full of exceptions (some might even say that exceptions are the only rule in chemistry) however people seem to have no qualms with trying to reason through those subjects.
  - 4cao 5y ago
    > A lot of Chemistry and Biology is full of exceptions (some might even say that exceptions are the only rule in chemistry) What I meant by "exceptions" in my previous comment: if grammar books have to be "thousands of pages long," then at some point they're no longer listing rules but exceptions to them. I wouldn't expect this statement to even be controversial but since apparently it is, all the more it's worth clarifying. Is the conjugation of the verb "to be" an exception, or is it covered by a very specific rule that only applies to that particular verb? I guess in the end it could be a matter of definition. But if this is supposed to be one of those "very complex — perhaps even unpredictable, or irregular [rules]," as the grandparent would apparently have it, then I have to question what his definition of an "exception" would be. Are there any exceptions to grammar rules at all? As a matter of fact I agree with you. In fact, if you look at my original comment, I've been saying something similar all along. Philosophically, what we consider intrinsic rules of nature is often an approximation introduced to gain insight by reducing complexity. However, the discussion was in the context of linguistics, and beyond that I don't see any obvious parallel to the example from natural sciences you're bringing up.
    - mcswell 5y ago
      "if grammar books have to be "thousands of pages long," then at some point they're no longer listing rules but exceptions to them." I've never seen a grammar book that was thousands of pages long, and I've looked at lots of them. The longest ones I know (for English, naturally) are still well under 1000 pages. I have co-authored one (the Cubeo language) and edited or typeset lots of others, some of them running into the hundreds of pages. And the reason they're that long has nothing to do with exceptions, it has to do with verbal explanations for the reader, examples, excursions on semantics and pragmatics, citations, discussions of alternative analyses, and so forth. If you boiled it all down to rules--phrase structure rules, say, and morphological rules for languages that enjoy morphology, plus tables of exceptional paradigms (probably the only real exceptions), you'd probably end up with grammars on the order of 20 pages. And fwiw, I don't think any linguist would consider the paradigm of English "to be" to be even remotely regular.
- mcswell 5y ago
  By and large, languages have rules, and exceptions are--well, the exception. Exceptions tend to occur more often in common words (perhaps because children don't learn the exceptions in rare words, unless they're drilled on them--which we do on English in school). One question though is where the boundary is between rule and exception. In Spanish, various subsets of verbs undergo stem allomorphy. This can generally be described as rules (you do have to know which words undergo those rules), but it's unclear where the rules stop being rules and start being exceptions. Also, while there are often exceptions in morphology, exceptions are almost non-existent in syntax. Again, much depends on where (or whether) there is a distinction between rules and exceptions. In English, unlike some languages, adpositions go before the NP (hence their name, prepositions). But there is at least one English adposition that follows the NP, namely 'ago' (hence it is a postposition). Is this an exception? Depends on your notion of "rule". Also BTW, the line between spoken and written language isn't really a question of writing, odd as that may seem. Transcribed speech is still an oral language, distinct in many ways from written speech (e.g. written speech, even in newly written languages, tends to be syntactically and often lexically more complex than oral speech in the same language).

by bradrn 5y ago

4cao 5y ago

> Maybe those rules are very complex — perhaps even unpredictable, or irregular — but they can be described. Sounds very much like "exceptions" to me then. >> In these examples, we're only looking at how things are written, which is yet another filter that gives an incomplete view. > This is wrong also. Does the linked PDF include any embedded audio material? If not, how could what I wrote be possibly wrong? > If you look carefully at the example questions from the Olympiad, you will see that those languages without a conventional orthography are written using the International Phonetic Alphabet I looked carefully at the example questions before posting my original comment already, and I only saw the IPA being used in a single footnote in one place (page 11). Have we been looking at the same source material? https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf https://ioling.org/booklets/samples.en.pdf

xmprt 5y ago
A lot of Chemistry and Biology is full of exceptions (some might even say that exceptions are the only rule in chemistry) however people seem to have no qualms with trying to reason through those subjects.
- 4cao 5y ago
  > A lot of Chemistry and Biology is full of exceptions (some might even say that exceptions are the only rule in chemistry) What I meant by "exceptions" in my previous comment: if grammar books have to be "thousands of pages long," then at some point they're no longer listing rules but exceptions to them. I wouldn't expect this statement to even be controversial but since apparently it is, all the more it's worth clarifying. Is the conjugation of the verb "to be" an exception, or is it covered by a very specific rule that only applies to that particular verb? I guess in the end it could be a matter of definition. But if this is supposed to be one of those "very complex — perhaps even unpredictable, or irregular [rules]," as the grandparent would apparently have it, then I have to question what his definition of an "exception" would be. Are there any exceptions to grammar rules at all? As a matter of fact I agree with you. In fact, if you look at my original comment, I've been saying something similar all along. Philosophically, what we consider intrinsic rules of nature is often an approximation introduced to gain insight by reducing complexity. However, the discussion was in the context of linguistics, and beyond that I don't see any obvious parallel to the example from natural sciences you're bringing up.
  - mcswell 5y ago
    "if grammar books have to be "thousands of pages long," then at some point they're no longer listing rules but exceptions to them." I've never seen a grammar book that was thousands of pages long, and I've looked at lots of them. The longest ones I know (for English, naturally) are still well under 1000 pages. I have co-authored one (the Cubeo language) and edited or typeset lots of others, some of them running into the hundreds of pages. And the reason they're that long has nothing to do with exceptions, it has to do with verbal explanations for the reader, examples, excursions on semantics and pragmatics, citations, discussions of alternative analyses, and so forth. If you boiled it all down to rules--phrase structure rules, say, and morphological rules for languages that enjoy morphology, plus tables of exceptional paradigms (probably the only real exceptions), you'd probably end up with grammars on the order of 20 pages. And fwiw, I don't think any linguist would consider the paradigm of English "to be" to be even remotely regular.
mcswell 5y ago
By and large, languages have rules, and exceptions are--well, the exception. Exceptions tend to occur more often in common words (perhaps because children don't learn the exceptions in rare words, unless they're drilled on them--which we do on English in school). One question though is where the boundary is between rule and exception. In Spanish, various subsets of verbs undergo stem allomorphy. This can generally be described as rules (you do have to know which words undergo those rules), but it's unclear where the rules stop being rules and start being exceptions. Also, while there are often exceptions in morphology, exceptions are almost non-existent in syntax. Again, much depends on where (or whether) there is a distinction between rules and exceptions. In English, unlike some languages, adpositions go before the NP (hence their name, prepositions). But there is at least one English adposition that follows the NP, namely 'ago' (hence it is a postposition). Is this an exception? Depends on your notion of "rule". Also BTW, the line between spoken and written language isn't really a question of writing, odd as that may seem. Transcribed speech is still an oral language, distinct in many ways from written speech (e.g. written speech, even in newly written languages, tends to be syntactically and often lexically more complex than oral speech in the same language).