some-antics.com

[Edit: A previous version of this post had a huge typo, VP -> V that CP.  Incidentally, Polly’s latest homework also contains that typo :-P]

According to Polly and the other New Englanders in our syntax class, the VP -> V that S construction is ungrammatical (for verbs like reflect, capture, express,…), whereas the semantically similar VP -> V NP (where NP is some equivalent the proposition that… construction) is just dandy. That is, The data reflect that so-called Grimshaw verbs can take that-S as objects is ungrammatical to speakers of this dialect, while The data reflect the fact that so-called Grimshaw verbs can take that-S as objects is grammatical.

If you Google the phrase reflect that the you’ll find that all the results on the first page use exactly that construction, as in:

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon, Americans can reflect that the Vietnam War did confine the virus of Communism to former Indochina

(from: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_9_57/ai_n15630993)

I’d say that I have a very very tolerant idiolect, but regarding this construction, it appears that I’m not the only one for whom this is totally acceptable. (Brendan’s reply to my “I have very loose grammar judgments” comment: Your grammar judgments are promiscuous! Yeah, they really do get around.)

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, syntax, linguistics :: 7 Comments »

Super Mario Bros. never told you the time! -Paul while playing Katamari last night

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc :: No Comments »

So does “so do I” mean “so I don’t”? -Brendan

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, syntax :: 5 Comments »

Is the title to the movie “Free Willy” a pun on “free will”?  As in, sure it can be interpreted as such, but do you think the producers of the movie actually named the whale Willy with that pun in mind?  Seems like you could go both ways.  Especially since I only just thought about that as a possible pun.  I had always interpreted “free” as an imperative and not a modifier to “Willy”.

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, pop-culture, question :: 2 Comments »

On Tuesday in Polly’s syntax class, we discussed the possible syntactic phrase structure rule for relative clauses in English. Now, this came after the explanation that proper nouns are not really different from what are regularly categorized as Noun Phrases. They appear to have the same syntactic distribution and therefore proper nouns like Mitka and Gottlob have the same category as some dog and the green man. So with this theory of NPs in mind, we moved on to two possible recursive rules for relative clauses:

NP -> NP RC or N -> N RC

Now, Polly (playing devil’s advocate, I think) pushed the argument for the N -> N RC rule, saying that the semantics really had a strong argument for this structure. And then someone in class made an observation that the N -> N RC rule really does seem to hold up to the distributional facts, while the NP -> NP RC rule didn’t. That is, while the green man who jumped over the moon is well-formed, Gottlob who drank many beers is not (or at least very archaic). I agree with the claim that proper nouns don’t seem to take RCs as well as common nouns, but I’m not convinced that this is an argument for the N -> N RC rule (or an argument against NP -> NP RC).

Because, if you recall, we started this by making an assumption about proper nouns and other NPs belonging to the same category because of supposed similarity in distribution. But if we abandon this assumption and names are names and NPs are NPs and the two are in fact not quite the same, then the fact that NPs take RCs and names don’t is just a fact of their dissimilarity in distribution and evidence that we don’t assume these two as belonging to the same category.

And semantically, this isn’t totally off. Names refer to individuals which stay constant throughout all possible words, whereas the Det-N reference to an individual is world-dependent.

I’m, of course, not completely positive that this is the right way to think about proper nouns and other NPs, but I do think that some of the arguments made in favor of the standard view need to be more carefully evaluated.  (And there’s more to be said here about how you would do the semantics for the NP -> NP RC rule, because that certainly still seems to be a problem for this rule.  However, there is a solution, and I’ll get to that later.)

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, syntax, semantics, linguistics :: No Comments »

In a discussion about language, grammar, syntax (/operational semantics), semantics, rationality, inference, …

Emma: …(speculative blather about the human cognitive process and logical ability)

Nathan: You could even call that…rationality.

Emma: Ok, sure, but that’s a sort of loaded word, too, wouldn’t you say?

Nathan: Yeah, but…

Emma: If you’re not going to let me have grammar on account of it being loaded…

Nathan: Ok ok…

Emma: Well, ok.  At some point we’re going to have to agree on some primitives.

Nathan: Why?  When we do that, we’ll be done talking!

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, syntax, semantics, philosophy, linguistics :: No Comments »

Tonight, Paul came into my room and asked me if I would introduce him to Katamari Damacy. Paul’s not really the gamer type at all, but he got immediately hooked on Katamari, and soon he, Raj and even Elena were all excited to get their turn with the little Prince of the Cosmos. I haven’t touched this game since this past summer, but it was super fun to play with a whole new group of people. I need to round up more people in Providence and get them hooked on this game.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Katamari Damacy is, Wikipedia has a very nice overview of it. If you’ve played Katamari before, you will perhaps enjoy this bit from Wikipedia about the title of the game:

In Japanese, Katamari (å¡Š, Katamari^?) means “clump” or “clod” and Damashii is the rendaku form of tamashii (é­‚, tamashii^?) which means “soul” or “spirit”. Therefore, the phrase approximates to “clump spirit” (in the same sense as “team spirit” or “school spirit”; cf. the use of “damashii” in Yamato Damashii).

I got my PS2 when I was in high school, the desire for it motivated by having played Grand Theft Auto 3 at a friend’s house. Now GTA3 was a fun little game, but playing it never really offered me the same level of satisfaction as playing any of the NES and SNES Mario games. And neither did playing some of my favorite games for the PS2: Kingdom Hearts, .hack, Ico,…Until one fateful night in the fall semester of 2005, my roommate at the time introduced me to Katamari Damacy. I really don’t play video games much anymore, but Katamari Damacy never fails to provide such an enjoyable experience. All of the elements of gameplay, even down to the music, are so entertainingly designed.

I’d go on and gush and gush about this game, but I think that’s enough.

But. Yeah. Katamari Damacy. Stop by my house to play. And if you don’t live anywhere near me, find someone in your neighborhood to bug.

(Images from Wikipedia.)

emma :: Feb.08.2007 :: misc, nerdiness :: 3 Comments »