Editing 2421: Tower of Babel
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
| Latest revision | Your text | ||
| Line 16: | Line 16: | ||
{{w|Phonology}} is the study of the sounds used in a language or dialect, or of the systems that languages use to organize sounds. For example, English has the words "light" and "right", indicating a distinction between /l/ and /r/, but other languages, such as Japanese, do not, resulting in the (in)famous stereotype. On the other hand, English does not make a distinction between /u/ and /y/, while French does, having words such as "le but" (the goal) and "le bout" (the tip). {{w|Word order}} is the study of order of the parts of a language, e.g., the subject, object, verb, and other modifiers. English uses the subject–verb–object order ("She loves him"), but other languages use subject-object-verb ("She him loves") and other permutations of these orders. | {{w|Phonology}} is the study of the sounds used in a language or dialect, or of the systems that languages use to organize sounds. For example, English has the words "light" and "right", indicating a distinction between /l/ and /r/, but other languages, such as Japanese, do not, resulting in the (in)famous stereotype. On the other hand, English does not make a distinction between /u/ and /y/, while French does, having words such as "le but" (the goal) and "le bout" (the tip). {{w|Word order}} is the study of order of the parts of a language, e.g., the subject, object, verb, and other modifiers. English uses the subject–verb–object order ("She loves him"), but other languages use subject-object-verb ("She him loves") and other permutations of these orders. | ||
| − | {{w|Morphosyntactic alignment}} is the relationship between the | + | {{w|Morphosyntactic alignment}} is the study of the relationship between the subject and object, as well as how languages indicate which is which. For example, in the sentence "the dog chased the cat", it's indicated that the dog is the one doing the chasing because it comes before the verb "chased". Other languages might switch it around: "the dog the cat chased", or use affixes to mark which is which: "the doga chased the cato" / "the cato chased the doga". (Note that all four sentences mean the same thing.) |
The title text expands the joke by suggesting that the miscommunication caused by the Tower of Babel is not due to language barriers, but instead because linguists have created intentionally meaningless sentences to illustrate points about grammar and identifies two famous examples of such. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: Something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping generally is not done furiously.{{Citation needed}} That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}. "More people have been to Russia than I have" is an example of {{w|comparative illusion}}. The idea conveyed by the sentence may seem to be clear at first, but upon deeper analysis it has no well-formed meaning and is open to interpretation. Many people interpret its meaning as "I do not own/have in my household as many people as those who have been to Russia." | The title text expands the joke by suggesting that the miscommunication caused by the Tower of Babel is not due to language barriers, but instead because linguists have created intentionally meaningless sentences to illustrate points about grammar and identifies two famous examples of such. "{{w|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously}}", coined by linguist {{w|Noam Chomsky}} in 1957, is an example of a sentence that is structurally correct but contains paradoxes and meaningless comparisons: Something cannot be both colorless AND green (see {{w|Invisible Pink Unicorn}}), ideas do not sleep, and sleeping generally is not done furiously.{{Citation needed}} That said, the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is so well known in linguistics that a competition to make the sentence meaningful was held in 1985 and {{w|Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiously#Attempts_at_meaningful_interpretations|attracted a number of entrants}}. "More people have been to Russia than I have" is an example of {{w|comparative illusion}}. The idea conveyed by the sentence may seem to be clear at first, but upon deeper analysis it has no well-formed meaning and is open to interpretation. Many people interpret its meaning as "I do not own/have in my household as many people as those who have been to Russia." | ||
