Questions tagged [recursion]
The recursion tag has no usage guidance.
14 questions
7
votes
2
answers
547
views
Why is binarity emphasized so much in linguistics?
I'm an aspiring linguistics student, not a professional, so my thinking may be misguided or elementary.
In my personal research about linguistics, I have discovered many important theories and ...
- 724
0
votes
0
answers
34
views
Can levels of nesting in conjunctions be unambiguously systematically parsed?
This question on NLP asks for the how of parsing, and the given answer shows how the state-of-the-art isn't at that level. But whether this is a hard problem or not is not my question: what I ask is, ...
- 141
0
votes
0
answers
96
views
Sentence with two PPs, without recursive embedding of either in the other
I'm having some difficulty with finding an example of an English sentence which includes two consecutive prepositional phrases without embedding. Would "We ran off into the sunset" qualify?
- 1
6
votes
1
answer
382
views
Does Piraha syntax lack any recursion or just embedding?
I think we're all familiar with the background. Piraha is said to contradict the principles of universal grammar because it lacks embedding, but embedding and recursion aren't the same thing. Other ...
- 259
4
votes
3
answers
181
views
Do recursively generated tenses exist?
To clarify, I'm not a linguist, and I only have a cursory grasp on any of this terminology, so sorry in advance for butchering it.
I'm wondering if any languages exist where one can recursively ...
- 259
1
vote
1
answer
218
views
Does the recursive capability of Merge demonstrate the productivity of human language?
I am completely new to linguistics (and have to write an essay linked to this topic) and have read about Merge, which seems to allow its outputs to be put back in as inputs. Would you say this shows ...
- 13
1
vote
0
answers
234
views
conjunctions or enumerations inside a sentence make multiple predicates [closed]
please tell me if in the following example:
The tree is characterized by long, strong roots.
Does the enumeration generate two nested (recursion) sentences?
1. The tree is characterized by long ...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
188
views
Is a simple chain of independent sentences with conjunctions considered as a form of recursion?
To my understanding, recursion is a synonym of nesting, and it's distinctive when a child clause is center-embedded in the parent clause.
I believe below is an example of recursion:
The beautiful ...
9
votes
3
answers
14k
views
What's the difference between recursion and embedding?
Chains of relative clauses and strings of attributive adjectives are both examples of recursion--Correct?
Chains of relative clauses have each non-initial relative clause embedded within the previous ...
- 8,780
4
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Wouldn't a language without recursion still be non-finite at the level of discourse?
[As per comments below, I have edited this question for greater clarity.]
I want to know whether a language without recursion, which would generate only a finite number of well-formed sentences, ...
- 8,780
14
votes
7
answers
89k
views
What is recursion?
What is recursion? I've looked at the Wikipedia's explanation (recursion and then recursion in language) but that explanation is not really clear.
- 149
11
votes
4
answers
717
views
Are the morphologies of languages based on regular grammars?
Is the sets of possible morphemes of any given language a regular set, and can thus be recognized by a finite state automaton, or, equivalently, matched by regular expressions?
Or are there any ...
- 250
15
votes
0
answers
2k
views
How did Chinese recursion evolve?
The modern Chinese linguistic recursion system is essentially the same as the English one. If you have a highly embedded sentence, you can translate it word for word; the embedding is very much the ...
17
votes
6
answers
6k
views
Does Pirahã syntax contradict the principles of Universal Grammar?
The Wikipedia article on Universal Grammar cites the research by Everett (2005) about the Pirahã language:
Finally, in the domain of field research, the Pirahã language is claimed to be a ...
- 8,228