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If the language lacks recursion, how do speakers say "Mary thought that I said to Carla that she wasn't home"? I know Everett says that the clauses at the end of the sentence are separate sentences, but there's no way that works here. Do they say: "Mary thought a thought. The thought was this. I said to carla an utterance. The utterance was this. Mary wasn't home." Which is completely ridiculous and inhuman. Likebox ( talk) 13:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
(deindent) I agree with you that you can consider A+B+C better as a flat list than an embedded (A+B)+C, but both are technically "recursive" because they both go on forever. But I am not interested in these too simple examples.
Consider the language of + , * , ( , ) and consider the expressions of the form
These expressions are all context free expressions in a context free language. Why is that? Is there something inherently "context free" about the integers? But there's something context free about the language we invented for manipulating them. Why did we do that?
Consider the expressions in calculus for "derivative of a function", D.
which means the derivative of ( a times the derivative-of-(b times c) times d)
These are standard notations for mathematical expressions, but they are all context free grammars. But is this because there is something inherently context-free about the notion of derivative?
For example, let me use D(ab) to mean the derivative of the product a times b, and also D[ab] to also mean the derivative of the product a times b, so that I have two different types of parentheses that mean the same thing.
Using two different parentheses, I can consider the expression:
which means the same as the previous expression: the derivative of ( a times the derivative-of-b-times-c times d). But now you can make a non context free expression:
Which is going to be hard to read--- it means the derivative of the product abcd where one derivative is of only the "abc" part, while the other derivative is only of the "bcd" part. This expression also makes sense, meaning that it expands to a unique product of derivatives under the product rule. So why does the mathematical language not even allow us to say an expression like that?
I used to think it was because our natural language was context-free. So this infected our thought process, and then this infected our mathematical language. But now it seems it started out in the thought process. Likebox ( talk) 19:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Everett's work has been misrepresented here--- he doesn't make the jumbled up claims that have been presented here. He says that sentences cannot embed clauses with subclauses, and even the single-embedding level is very limited. He also says that the same thoughts are expressed by splitting up the information into separate sentences and placing them close together. These are not incoherent claims, and they have been made to look that way on this page. Likebox ( talk) 20:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
There's been a back-and-forth in Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America. So whether you think the criticism of Everett is "ludicrous" or not, it is clearly criticism taken seriously in the field of linguistics and therefore needs to be represented in the article, alongside Everett's statements, with NPOV.
But anyway, the issue isn't "speaker vs. non-speaker", but accuracy and coherence of claims. On the issues you cite, Everett is just wrong.
For example, if the structure of your first example were a corelative as Everett first claimed, it would be rendered as "Which hammock Chico sold, I want that hammock." That most emphatically does not violate principle C of Chomsky's binding conditions, since there is no c-command between the two occurences of "hammock".
As for your second example, of course it is possible to paraphrase a relative clause using a separate sentence. It's possible in English too, though. Does that mean English lacks embedding? So this test does not tells us anything about the presence or absence of embedded relative clauses in a language. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 13:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
On the issues you cite, Everett is just wrong.
There's no excuse for using words like "ludicrous" and "morons" to describe people and views with which you happen disagree. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 20:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
In order to embed one clause within another, the embedded clause is turned into a noun with the -sai suffix seen above:
hi | ob-áaxái | kahaí | kai-sai | |
(s)he | knows-really | arrow | make-ing |
ti | xog-i-baí | gíxai | kahaí | kai-sai | |
I | want-this-very.much | you | arrow | make-ing |
Everett claims that this structure does not really constitute embedding, but is an instance of parataxis, but this has been disputed by other linguists. [1] Everett responds to these criticisms with the claim that -sai marks 'old information' and does not nominalize. [2] His critics have replied with the observation that if "-sai" actually marks 'old information', Everett's arguments against embedding are actually undermined, so that 'almost none of [Everett's 2005] original arguments for the lack of embedding remain'. [3]
Everett used to claim that in order to embed one clause within another, the embedded clause is turned into a noun with the -sai suffix seen above:
hi | ob-áaxái | kahaí | kai-sai | |
(s)he | knows-really | arrow | make-ing |
ti | xog-i-baí | gíxai | kahaí | kai-sai | |
I | want-this-very.much | you | arrow | make-ing |
Everett later retracted the claim that this structure is recursive embedding, since the constructions allowed are limited. In doing this, he further claimed that Piraha doesn't have any recursive embedding at all. He reclassified many of the instances which he had earlier thought were recursive as instances of parataxis, sentences on related subjects which follow one another closely, and which include the content which would be embedded in clauses in a recursive language such as English.
He argues that the single sentence construction, such as the one above, is not a true embedding since it cannot embed clauses with subclauses, like "He really knows how to talk about building houses". To express these thoughts, you must split them into two sentences. Close juxtapositions of sentences can be mistaken for embeddings by a linguist who only has a slight familiarity with the language.
This claim conflicts with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics, and has been vigorously disputed by other linguists. [1] They believe, based on established theoretical principles, that Everett's new analysis must be incorrect. Everett responds by saying that his earlier understanding of the language was incomplete, and slanted by the same theoretical biases, which demand that recursive embedded constructions should be possible in all languages. He now classifies the stuff before the -sai as 'old information' which does not nominalize. [2]
I think this is accurate. Likebox ( talk) 01:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
It is not accurate. For one thing, the claim does not "conflict with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", no matter what Everett says. (If you disagree, produce the relevant argument from Chomsky or others whose work can be called "Chomskian".) In fact it doesn't conflict with any principles of anybody's linguistics I know of. Every language has lots of restrictions on embedding, that's one of the ways languages differ from each other. Also the "vigorous dispute" from other linguists is not on the grounds of "established theoretical principles" but on the grounds of what can or cannot be claimed on the basis of the published facts.
I agree the current article can be improved, but probably you should leave that job to editors with more expertise and background in the field, and with less tendency to dismiss opposing views as "ludicrous" (and those who hold them as "morons"). Clangiphor3 ( talk) 19:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
the claim does not "conflict with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", no matter what Everett says.
No. You attribute to Chomsky "the core claim that the syntax of any human language allows for infinitely many sentences", but that's not his claim. The actual claim (and the whole point of the article with Hauser and Fitch) is that the human faculty of language allows human languages to involve an infinite number of sentences. A very different claim, since we know that every language is restricted in the instances of recursion that it accepts. If Pirahã is finite, as Everett claims, it would simply be the limiting case of restrictions on recursion -- so many restrictions that it fails to reveal this property of the human faculty of language. It's another question whether Everett is right about Pirahã, of course, but even if he is, no core claims are affected. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 21:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
1. No goalposts have been shifted by anyone. You offer two quotes from the Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch paper in support your view of what they claimed:
a. "At a minimum, then, FLN includes the capacity for recursion." But the "F" in "FLN" stands for "faculty", as in "faculty of language". The claim thus concerns a human faculty -- a capacity, with no claim whatsoever that all humans necessarily exercise this capacity or exercise it in the same way.
b. "... and there is no non-arbitrary upper bound to sentence length. In this respect, language is directly analogous to the natural numbers." This passage also comes from a discussion of "FLN" (look at its context), not from a discussion of any particular language.
So they are saying exactly what I characterized them as saying, and what Chomsky himself (as you note) has repeatedly said was their intent.
2. So what predictions do these particular claims make? Nothing very novel, in fact. Simply that languages exist whose grammars involve recursive rules, and that every child has the capacity to acquire such languages. This is a prediction confirmed more than a half-century ago by...well by arguing that there are such languages (lots and lots) -- and that children of whatever genetic background appear to acquire them!
Now maybe you think therefore that this is a pretty weak claim to attract all the attention that it has, and that surely Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch must have had something stronger in mind. Well take that up with the editors of Science who published the paper. Because that's the only claim they did make on this topic -- accompanied by the speculation (the main point of their paper) that given the right theory of grammar, the capacity for recursion is *all* that needed to be added to pre-existing primate cognitive systems to yield a faculty of language. And yes, that speculation is weakly supported, and you're free to join the chorus of people who are skeptical -- but that's another topic entirely.
The topic of relevance here is only whether Pirahã -- even under Everett's description -- is a "a falsification of Chomsky" or "conflicts with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", as you suggest -- even if it fails to instantiate the human capacity for recursion in its grammar. The answer is no. So though it would be right to report that Everett claims otherwise (because indeed he does), it would be incorrect to report this as if it were just true, because it just isn't.
3. So let's turn to Pirahã. You suggest "that for this article, it is possible to say only the Piraha does not allow unlimited embedding, and that there is a maximal sentence length." Frankly, I don't think this has been shown anywhere, except as an unsupported assertion on Everett's part. But maybe it's true, and in fact his 1986 analysis also predicts this for clauses -- since they are noun phrases and there's definitely only one level of noun-phrase embedding elsewhere. So, yes, it can be accurately reported that Everett makes an claim to this effect, whose significance to other issues is disputed. So go ahead, if you want. But I recommend leaving it at that.
I'm going to stop here. Thank you for the conversation. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 02:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the conversation.
References
What gives? I thought we agreed on embedding. The statement that "Languages all share the same recursive grammar structure" is no longer attributed to Chomsky, but it is attributed to a nebulous "widespread intepretation". Where's the beef? Likebox ( talk) 15:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It is not a "widespread interpretation", just Everett's. And it's not what Chomsky said. Current text makes it clear what Everett says Chomsky says, and what Chomsky says he says.
Also, the text you added adopts Everett's stance that his critics offer only ideology as the basis for their objections, but in fact their objection is empirical -- using published data to counter Everett's claims. Current revision makes that clear, while taking no stand on who is right in the end. That too was discussed.
I am not, however, going to engage in lengthy continued discussion of this. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 15:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
If you believe the interpretation is widespread, that needs to be documented. Find sources that do not trace back to Everett (as the New Yorker does) and cite them.
Your reference to "literature in relation to native Australian languages which were also claimed to lack recursion in the 1970s" is probably a reference to two articles by Ken Hale, which claim only that Warlpiri lacked embedded relative clauses. If you think there is other literature, cite it.
If you think that Chomsky "made an extrapolation from the isomorphic recursive syntax of all modern old-world languages to the idea that all languages have had this feature for a long time." -- cite your source.
Until then, please leave these views out of the Wikipedia article, since they are not sourced and not verifiable. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 02:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
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Disclaimers: Although I am a Third Opinion Wikipedian, this is not a Third Opinion in response to the request made at WP:3O, but is merely some personal observations and/or information about your request and/or your dispute. I have made no previous edits on Pirahã language and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. My personal ethical standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here. |
Comments/Information: I'm afraid that your request has languished without anyone taking it at WP:3O because none of us generalists there are specialized enough to figure it out. If you really need help with it, can I suggest that you withdraw your Third Opinion request (just go back to the 3O page and delete it from the list of active disputes with a note in the edit summary and remove the {{ 3O}} template, above, too) and ask for help via a WP:RFC or a posting at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Languages. If you would rather have help from 3O, nonetheless, please feel free to leave it listed (but don't ask for help at one of those other places, too, as that can be seen as forum–shopping), but I'm afraid that you may not get it or it may be a long time coming.
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Note to other 3O Wikipedians: I have not yet "taken" this request, removed it from the active request list at the WP:3O page, or otherwise "reserved" it, so please go ahead and opine on it if you care to do so. — TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 20:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC) |
LikeBox please stop reverting all edits that attribute the alleged "counterexample to universal grammar" to Everett rather than stating it as fact, just because you personally agree with Everett. 217.41.229.219 ( talk) 09:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
LikeBox, It appears you are repeating a pattern of argumentative reversions and reinsertions that you have practised on other pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=322151825#User:Likebox_and_tendentious_re-insertion_of_original_research. I see from the history of your talk page that you have also been suspended for this behaviour in the past. Please take that behaviour elsewhere. 09:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.229.219 ( talk)
(deindent) It is not that I think this editor is editing as IP (and I wouldn't report it anyway--- it would be silly), rather, there have been anon comments on pages I have visited by someone who doesn't seem to care about content, but who is hung up on certain past edit wars.
This discussion is off topic--- you are new here and you should know some things: Sources don't resolve disputes, compromise resolves disputes. Compromise requires talking until you find language that is acceptable to all positions. In the course of this discussions, you can say whatever you want to about sources: "This was written on toilet paper in a mental asylum!" "This source is deranged", "This writer is totally out there!" If the author (who is the only one who should be offended) is here, that's not incivility on your part, that's COI on her part. Likebox ( talk) 16:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
While it's known that Pirahã has very few phonemes there some inconsistency in how many there are relative to other languages. This article said:
I've cleaned that up to remove the absolute comparisons and inconsistency. I'm currently reading Everett's Don't Sleep, there are Snakes and adding citations to the Pirahã article to better source that one. In "Snakes" p. 179 Everett states that Pirahã, Rotokas, and Hawaiian each have eleven phonemes. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian phonology article documents 13 or 33 phonemes meaning that how you count, and perhaps who does the counting, is an issue.
Everett helps to clear up some of the contention as "Snakes" p. 178 has "Pirahã has one of the smallest sets of speech sounds or phonemes in the world..." meaning we have a reliable source that puts Pirahã among the smallest rather than making absolute larger or smaller claims relative to Rotokas, Hawaiian, or other languages.
I am concerned that 20% of this article is an unsourced dissection of various ways of measuring the phoneme inventory. While it seems valid the dissection itself feels like original research and more specifically, a synthesis. -- Marc Kupper| talk 06:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
When there is no singular plural distinction (even in pronouns), why does the language have different pronouns for it? gi¹xai³ "you" (sing.) gi¹xa³i¹ti³so³ "you" (pl.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.96.2.50 ( talk) 14:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Maybe because the language does have a singular plural distincton? Linguïston ( talk) 03:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Here's an interesting experiment we can try out: Someone who knows both a recursive language and Pirahã should try raising a child bilingually, with both languages spoken to the child as he/she develops; it may happen that this child will realize how to bridge the gap of understanding between Pirahã speakers and recursive language speakers. This may reveal something about humans that has yet to be seen. It may require individuals that know a recursive language getting residence in a place where Pirahã is spoken, so the child can get interaction from both Pirahã speakers and recursive language speakers as he/she develops. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.139.11 ( talk) 08:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I removed several instances of "Everett claims ___" and replaced "claims" with "states" or "says" or simply re-cast the sentence. As John Wyndham once wrote, "Do you claim to have had breakfast this morning or did you have breakfast?" I felt that his side of the controversy was minimized and not adequately explained. As someone who has no entrenched point of view in this discussion, I hope that what I have done makes the article both clearer and more fair. — Monado ( talk) 03:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
自教育 ( talk) 18:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Why the article use three tones, as proposed by Sheldon, instead of the two proposed by Everett? Looking at it on the surface, I'd guess that the person that spent decades with these people would know more about their tone system than some Sheldon, last name unknown, who made that uncited claim in 1988, and that's the extent of the article's covering of him. Spacenut42 ( talk) 22:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
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I came here to find out how the R is pronounced in "Pirahã," but did not find anything about that letter although it is contained in the tribe's very name. M^A^L ( talk) 18:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
"Pirahã" is the Portuguese name of both the tribe and language, with the local names being "híaitíihí" (for the tribe) and "xapaitíiso" (for the language). For the pronunciation of the word "Pirahã" itself, it is written in Pirahã. OosakaNoOusama ( talk) 01:13, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
What is the letter that represents the sound [t͡ʙ̥]? And what are some words that use this sound? OosakaNoOusama ( talk) 01:09, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
The "idea of god" is a matterial circuitry inside the brains of some people, but the "notion of god" is not god.
The antitheist claims that we shouldn't make such erroneous connections in our brains, and the atheist simply doesn't make these erroneous axonal connections.
Being an atheist isn't a neutral state.
The atheist KNOWS that such erroneous axonal connections exist inside some people's brains.
That's why babies are religiously indifferent but not atheists.
The "notion of god" comes before atheism.
Study about the Amazonian tribe Pirahã and Daniel Everett.
The Pirahã were irreligious and religiously indifferent.
They didn't have a notion of god.
They didn't deny something they didn't know; originally they weren't atheists.
If one debated them for hours about god, he might made them atheists, but some remained religiously indifferent even after that. They simply didn't care about the idea of an omnipotent invisible person demiurge; and didn't waste brain circuitry to deny something they didn't care about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4116:6200:562:5FE5:E593:337F ( talk) 03:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
While this article in the University Times at the University of Pittsburgh—which is dated 1994, not 2004, by the way—does assert that [ t͡ʙ̥ is found in Pirahã, not only has Everett disputed it in the Reddit AMA, but if this was the case, the lack of mention of Pirahã in Ladefoged & Everett (1996) would seem too glaring an omission. I find it likely that Everett was only talking about the simple bilabial trill—which is still an uncommon sound overall—in Pirahã and the writer of the article mistook it for the affricate. Nardog ( talk) 09:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The current article text contains:
"Pronouns are prefixed to the verb, in the order SUBJECT-INDOBJECT-OBJECT where INDOBJECT includes a preposition "to", "for", etc. They may all be omitted, e.g., hi³-ti³-gi¹xai³-bi²i³b-i³ha³i¹ "he will send you to me"."
Reading the second sentence, I expected "e.g." to be followed by an example where all three pronoun prefix positions were empty. But unless I am very mistaken in comparing the segments of the Pirahã expression with the expressions in the table, it is actually an example of an expression where all three prefix positions SUBJECT-INDOBJECT-OBJECT are all occupied. If the latter holds true, I propose the text be edited so that it no longer confuses. Redav ( talk) 03:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
Both of the inventories here have k and s https://phoible.org/languages/pira1253 And the reasons of "Everett posits that [k] is an allophone of the sequence /hi/", "Women sometimes substitute /h/ for /s/", do not seems like reasons for the article to treat them as nothing but allophones. So I will remove the parentheses ONCE, I will not edit war. 97.113.186.235 ( talk) 16:40, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
What is the translation for the following sentence?
ti
I
xog-i-baí
want-this-very.much
gíxai
you
kahaí
arrow
kai-sai
make-ing
Does it mean "I very much want you to make arrows/an arrow"? 120.22.146.71 ( talk) 01:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
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If the language lacks recursion, how do speakers say "Mary thought that I said to Carla that she wasn't home"? I know Everett says that the clauses at the end of the sentence are separate sentences, but there's no way that works here. Do they say: "Mary thought a thought. The thought was this. I said to carla an utterance. The utterance was this. Mary wasn't home." Which is completely ridiculous and inhuman. Likebox ( talk) 13:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
(deindent) I agree with you that you can consider A+B+C better as a flat list than an embedded (A+B)+C, but both are technically "recursive" because they both go on forever. But I am not interested in these too simple examples.
Consider the language of + , * , ( , ) and consider the expressions of the form
These expressions are all context free expressions in a context free language. Why is that? Is there something inherently "context free" about the integers? But there's something context free about the language we invented for manipulating them. Why did we do that?
Consider the expressions in calculus for "derivative of a function", D.
which means the derivative of ( a times the derivative-of-(b times c) times d)
These are standard notations for mathematical expressions, but they are all context free grammars. But is this because there is something inherently context-free about the notion of derivative?
For example, let me use D(ab) to mean the derivative of the product a times b, and also D[ab] to also mean the derivative of the product a times b, so that I have two different types of parentheses that mean the same thing.
Using two different parentheses, I can consider the expression:
which means the same as the previous expression: the derivative of ( a times the derivative-of-b-times-c times d). But now you can make a non context free expression:
Which is going to be hard to read--- it means the derivative of the product abcd where one derivative is of only the "abc" part, while the other derivative is only of the "bcd" part. This expression also makes sense, meaning that it expands to a unique product of derivatives under the product rule. So why does the mathematical language not even allow us to say an expression like that?
I used to think it was because our natural language was context-free. So this infected our thought process, and then this infected our mathematical language. But now it seems it started out in the thought process. Likebox ( talk) 19:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Everett's work has been misrepresented here--- he doesn't make the jumbled up claims that have been presented here. He says that sentences cannot embed clauses with subclauses, and even the single-embedding level is very limited. He also says that the same thoughts are expressed by splitting up the information into separate sentences and placing them close together. These are not incoherent claims, and they have been made to look that way on this page. Likebox ( talk) 20:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
There's been a back-and-forth in Language, the journal of the Linguistic Society of America. So whether you think the criticism of Everett is "ludicrous" or not, it is clearly criticism taken seriously in the field of linguistics and therefore needs to be represented in the article, alongside Everett's statements, with NPOV.
But anyway, the issue isn't "speaker vs. non-speaker", but accuracy and coherence of claims. On the issues you cite, Everett is just wrong.
For example, if the structure of your first example were a corelative as Everett first claimed, it would be rendered as "Which hammock Chico sold, I want that hammock." That most emphatically does not violate principle C of Chomsky's binding conditions, since there is no c-command between the two occurences of "hammock".
As for your second example, of course it is possible to paraphrase a relative clause using a separate sentence. It's possible in English too, though. Does that mean English lacks embedding? So this test does not tells us anything about the presence or absence of embedded relative clauses in a language. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 13:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
On the issues you cite, Everett is just wrong.
There's no excuse for using words like "ludicrous" and "morons" to describe people and views with which you happen disagree. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 20:01, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
In order to embed one clause within another, the embedded clause is turned into a noun with the -sai suffix seen above:
hi | ob-áaxái | kahaí | kai-sai | |
(s)he | knows-really | arrow | make-ing |
ti | xog-i-baí | gíxai | kahaí | kai-sai | |
I | want-this-very.much | you | arrow | make-ing |
Everett claims that this structure does not really constitute embedding, but is an instance of parataxis, but this has been disputed by other linguists. [1] Everett responds to these criticisms with the claim that -sai marks 'old information' and does not nominalize. [2] His critics have replied with the observation that if "-sai" actually marks 'old information', Everett's arguments against embedding are actually undermined, so that 'almost none of [Everett's 2005] original arguments for the lack of embedding remain'. [3]
Everett used to claim that in order to embed one clause within another, the embedded clause is turned into a noun with the -sai suffix seen above:
hi | ob-áaxái | kahaí | kai-sai | |
(s)he | knows-really | arrow | make-ing |
ti | xog-i-baí | gíxai | kahaí | kai-sai | |
I | want-this-very.much | you | arrow | make-ing |
Everett later retracted the claim that this structure is recursive embedding, since the constructions allowed are limited. In doing this, he further claimed that Piraha doesn't have any recursive embedding at all. He reclassified many of the instances which he had earlier thought were recursive as instances of parataxis, sentences on related subjects which follow one another closely, and which include the content which would be embedded in clauses in a recursive language such as English.
He argues that the single sentence construction, such as the one above, is not a true embedding since it cannot embed clauses with subclauses, like "He really knows how to talk about building houses". To express these thoughts, you must split them into two sentences. Close juxtapositions of sentences can be mistaken for embeddings by a linguist who only has a slight familiarity with the language.
This claim conflicts with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics, and has been vigorously disputed by other linguists. [1] They believe, based on established theoretical principles, that Everett's new analysis must be incorrect. Everett responds by saying that his earlier understanding of the language was incomplete, and slanted by the same theoretical biases, which demand that recursive embedded constructions should be possible in all languages. He now classifies the stuff before the -sai as 'old information' which does not nominalize. [2]
I think this is accurate. Likebox ( talk) 01:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
It is not accurate. For one thing, the claim does not "conflict with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", no matter what Everett says. (If you disagree, produce the relevant argument from Chomsky or others whose work can be called "Chomskian".) In fact it doesn't conflict with any principles of anybody's linguistics I know of. Every language has lots of restrictions on embedding, that's one of the ways languages differ from each other. Also the "vigorous dispute" from other linguists is not on the grounds of "established theoretical principles" but on the grounds of what can or cannot be claimed on the basis of the published facts.
I agree the current article can be improved, but probably you should leave that job to editors with more expertise and background in the field, and with less tendency to dismiss opposing views as "ludicrous" (and those who hold them as "morons"). Clangiphor3 ( talk) 19:58, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
the claim does not "conflict with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", no matter what Everett says.
No. You attribute to Chomsky "the core claim that the syntax of any human language allows for infinitely many sentences", but that's not his claim. The actual claim (and the whole point of the article with Hauser and Fitch) is that the human faculty of language allows human languages to involve an infinite number of sentences. A very different claim, since we know that every language is restricted in the instances of recursion that it accepts. If Pirahã is finite, as Everett claims, it would simply be the limiting case of restrictions on recursion -- so many restrictions that it fails to reveal this property of the human faculty of language. It's another question whether Everett is right about Pirahã, of course, but even if he is, no core claims are affected. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 21:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
1. No goalposts have been shifted by anyone. You offer two quotes from the Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch paper in support your view of what they claimed:
a. "At a minimum, then, FLN includes the capacity for recursion." But the "F" in "FLN" stands for "faculty", as in "faculty of language". The claim thus concerns a human faculty -- a capacity, with no claim whatsoever that all humans necessarily exercise this capacity or exercise it in the same way.
b. "... and there is no non-arbitrary upper bound to sentence length. In this respect, language is directly analogous to the natural numbers." This passage also comes from a discussion of "FLN" (look at its context), not from a discussion of any particular language.
So they are saying exactly what I characterized them as saying, and what Chomsky himself (as you note) has repeatedly said was their intent.
2. So what predictions do these particular claims make? Nothing very novel, in fact. Simply that languages exist whose grammars involve recursive rules, and that every child has the capacity to acquire such languages. This is a prediction confirmed more than a half-century ago by...well by arguing that there are such languages (lots and lots) -- and that children of whatever genetic background appear to acquire them!
Now maybe you think therefore that this is a pretty weak claim to attract all the attention that it has, and that surely Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch must have had something stronger in mind. Well take that up with the editors of Science who published the paper. Because that's the only claim they did make on this topic -- accompanied by the speculation (the main point of their paper) that given the right theory of grammar, the capacity for recursion is *all* that needed to be added to pre-existing primate cognitive systems to yield a faculty of language. And yes, that speculation is weakly supported, and you're free to join the chorus of people who are skeptical -- but that's another topic entirely.
The topic of relevance here is only whether Pirahã -- even under Everett's description -- is a "a falsification of Chomsky" or "conflicts with the most fundamental principles of Chomskian linguistics", as you suggest -- even if it fails to instantiate the human capacity for recursion in its grammar. The answer is no. So though it would be right to report that Everett claims otherwise (because indeed he does), it would be incorrect to report this as if it were just true, because it just isn't.
3. So let's turn to Pirahã. You suggest "that for this article, it is possible to say only the Piraha does not allow unlimited embedding, and that there is a maximal sentence length." Frankly, I don't think this has been shown anywhere, except as an unsupported assertion on Everett's part. But maybe it's true, and in fact his 1986 analysis also predicts this for clauses -- since they are noun phrases and there's definitely only one level of noun-phrase embedding elsewhere. So, yes, it can be accurately reported that Everett makes an claim to this effect, whose significance to other issues is disputed. So go ahead, if you want. But I recommend leaving it at that.
I'm going to stop here. Thank you for the conversation. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 02:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the conversation.
References
What gives? I thought we agreed on embedding. The statement that "Languages all share the same recursive grammar structure" is no longer attributed to Chomsky, but it is attributed to a nebulous "widespread intepretation". Where's the beef? Likebox ( talk) 15:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
It is not a "widespread interpretation", just Everett's. And it's not what Chomsky said. Current text makes it clear what Everett says Chomsky says, and what Chomsky says he says.
Also, the text you added adopts Everett's stance that his critics offer only ideology as the basis for their objections, but in fact their objection is empirical -- using published data to counter Everett's claims. Current revision makes that clear, while taking no stand on who is right in the end. That too was discussed.
I am not, however, going to engage in lengthy continued discussion of this. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 15:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
If you believe the interpretation is widespread, that needs to be documented. Find sources that do not trace back to Everett (as the New Yorker does) and cite them.
Your reference to "literature in relation to native Australian languages which were also claimed to lack recursion in the 1970s" is probably a reference to two articles by Ken Hale, which claim only that Warlpiri lacked embedded relative clauses. If you think there is other literature, cite it.
If you think that Chomsky "made an extrapolation from the isomorphic recursive syntax of all modern old-world languages to the idea that all languages have had this feature for a long time." -- cite your source.
Until then, please leave these views out of the Wikipedia article, since they are not sourced and not verifiable. Clangiphor3 ( talk) 02:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
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Disclaimers: Although I am a Third Opinion Wikipedian, this is not a Third Opinion in response to the request made at WP:3O, but is merely some personal observations and/or information about your request and/or your dispute. I have made no previous edits on Pirahã language and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. My personal ethical standards for issuing third opinions can be viewed here. |
Comments/Information: I'm afraid that your request has languished without anyone taking it at WP:3O because none of us generalists there are specialized enough to figure it out. If you really need help with it, can I suggest that you withdraw your Third Opinion request (just go back to the 3O page and delete it from the list of active disputes with a note in the edit summary and remove the {{ 3O}} template, above, too) and ask for help via a WP:RFC or a posting at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Languages. If you would rather have help from 3O, nonetheless, please feel free to leave it listed (but don't ask for help at one of those other places, too, as that can be seen as forum–shopping), but I'm afraid that you may not get it or it may be a long time coming.
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Note to other 3O Wikipedians: I have not yet "taken" this request, removed it from the active request list at the WP:3O page, or otherwise "reserved" it, so please go ahead and opine on it if you care to do so. — TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 20:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC) |
LikeBox please stop reverting all edits that attribute the alleged "counterexample to universal grammar" to Everett rather than stating it as fact, just because you personally agree with Everett. 217.41.229.219 ( talk) 09:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
LikeBox, It appears you are repeating a pattern of argumentative reversions and reinsertions that you have practised on other pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=322151825#User:Likebox_and_tendentious_re-insertion_of_original_research. I see from the history of your talk page that you have also been suspended for this behaviour in the past. Please take that behaviour elsewhere. 09:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.229.219 ( talk)
(deindent) It is not that I think this editor is editing as IP (and I wouldn't report it anyway--- it would be silly), rather, there have been anon comments on pages I have visited by someone who doesn't seem to care about content, but who is hung up on certain past edit wars.
This discussion is off topic--- you are new here and you should know some things: Sources don't resolve disputes, compromise resolves disputes. Compromise requires talking until you find language that is acceptable to all positions. In the course of this discussions, you can say whatever you want to about sources: "This was written on toilet paper in a mental asylum!" "This source is deranged", "This writer is totally out there!" If the author (who is the only one who should be offended) is here, that's not incivility on your part, that's COI on her part. Likebox ( talk) 16:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
While it's known that Pirahã has very few phonemes there some inconsistency in how many there are relative to other languages. This article said:
I've cleaned that up to remove the absolute comparisons and inconsistency. I'm currently reading Everett's Don't Sleep, there are Snakes and adding citations to the Pirahã article to better source that one. In "Snakes" p. 179 Everett states that Pirahã, Rotokas, and Hawaiian each have eleven phonemes. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian phonology article documents 13 or 33 phonemes meaning that how you count, and perhaps who does the counting, is an issue.
Everett helps to clear up some of the contention as "Snakes" p. 178 has "Pirahã has one of the smallest sets of speech sounds or phonemes in the world..." meaning we have a reliable source that puts Pirahã among the smallest rather than making absolute larger or smaller claims relative to Rotokas, Hawaiian, or other languages.
I am concerned that 20% of this article is an unsourced dissection of various ways of measuring the phoneme inventory. While it seems valid the dissection itself feels like original research and more specifically, a synthesis. -- Marc Kupper| talk 06:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
When there is no singular plural distinction (even in pronouns), why does the language have different pronouns for it? gi¹xai³ "you" (sing.) gi¹xa³i¹ti³so³ "you" (pl.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.96.2.50 ( talk) 14:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Maybe because the language does have a singular plural distincton? Linguïston ( talk) 03:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
Here's an interesting experiment we can try out: Someone who knows both a recursive language and Pirahã should try raising a child bilingually, with both languages spoken to the child as he/she develops; it may happen that this child will realize how to bridge the gap of understanding between Pirahã speakers and recursive language speakers. This may reveal something about humans that has yet to be seen. It may require individuals that know a recursive language getting residence in a place where Pirahã is spoken, so the child can get interaction from both Pirahã speakers and recursive language speakers as he/she develops. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.139.11 ( talk) 08:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I removed several instances of "Everett claims ___" and replaced "claims" with "states" or "says" or simply re-cast the sentence. As John Wyndham once wrote, "Do you claim to have had breakfast this morning or did you have breakfast?" I felt that his side of the controversy was minimized and not adequately explained. As someone who has no entrenched point of view in this discussion, I hope that what I have done makes the article both clearer and more fair. — Monado ( talk) 03:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
自教育 ( talk) 18:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Why the article use three tones, as proposed by Sheldon, instead of the two proposed by Everett? Looking at it on the surface, I'd guess that the person that spent decades with these people would know more about their tone system than some Sheldon, last name unknown, who made that uncited claim in 1988, and that's the extent of the article's covering of him. Spacenut42 ( talk) 22:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
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I came here to find out how the R is pronounced in "Pirahã," but did not find anything about that letter although it is contained in the tribe's very name. M^A^L ( talk) 18:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
"Pirahã" is the Portuguese name of both the tribe and language, with the local names being "híaitíihí" (for the tribe) and "xapaitíiso" (for the language). For the pronunciation of the word "Pirahã" itself, it is written in Pirahã. OosakaNoOusama ( talk) 01:13, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
What is the letter that represents the sound [t͡ʙ̥]? And what are some words that use this sound? OosakaNoOusama ( talk) 01:09, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
The "idea of god" is a matterial circuitry inside the brains of some people, but the "notion of god" is not god.
The antitheist claims that we shouldn't make such erroneous connections in our brains, and the atheist simply doesn't make these erroneous axonal connections.
Being an atheist isn't a neutral state.
The atheist KNOWS that such erroneous axonal connections exist inside some people's brains.
That's why babies are religiously indifferent but not atheists.
The "notion of god" comes before atheism.
Study about the Amazonian tribe Pirahã and Daniel Everett.
The Pirahã were irreligious and religiously indifferent.
They didn't have a notion of god.
They didn't deny something they didn't know; originally they weren't atheists.
If one debated them for hours about god, he might made them atheists, but some remained religiously indifferent even after that. They simply didn't care about the idea of an omnipotent invisible person demiurge; and didn't waste brain circuitry to deny something they didn't care about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4116:6200:562:5FE5:E593:337F ( talk) 03:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
While this article in the University Times at the University of Pittsburgh—which is dated 1994, not 2004, by the way—does assert that [ t͡ʙ̥ is found in Pirahã, not only has Everett disputed it in the Reddit AMA, but if this was the case, the lack of mention of Pirahã in Ladefoged & Everett (1996) would seem too glaring an omission. I find it likely that Everett was only talking about the simple bilabial trill—which is still an uncommon sound overall—in Pirahã and the writer of the article mistook it for the affricate. Nardog ( talk) 09:32, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The current article text contains:
"Pronouns are prefixed to the verb, in the order SUBJECT-INDOBJECT-OBJECT where INDOBJECT includes a preposition "to", "for", etc. They may all be omitted, e.g., hi³-ti³-gi¹xai³-bi²i³b-i³ha³i¹ "he will send you to me"."
Reading the second sentence, I expected "e.g." to be followed by an example where all three pronoun prefix positions were empty. But unless I am very mistaken in comparing the segments of the Pirahã expression with the expressions in the table, it is actually an example of an expression where all three prefix positions SUBJECT-INDOBJECT-OBJECT are all occupied. If the latter holds true, I propose the text be edited so that it no longer confuses. Redav ( talk) 03:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
Both of the inventories here have k and s https://phoible.org/languages/pira1253 And the reasons of "Everett posits that [k] is an allophone of the sequence /hi/", "Women sometimes substitute /h/ for /s/", do not seems like reasons for the article to treat them as nothing but allophones. So I will remove the parentheses ONCE, I will not edit war. 97.113.186.235 ( talk) 16:40, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
What is the translation for the following sentence?
ti
I
xog-i-baí
want-this-very.much
gíxai
you
kahaí
arrow
kai-sai
make-ing
Does it mean "I very much want you to make arrows/an arrow"? 120.22.146.71 ( talk) 01:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)