Syntax testing day 28
Likashi
K’èvúkí nķe ķémekwa q'a nkukwa?
k’èvúkí nķe ķé-me-kwa-∅ q'a nku-kwa-∅
concert Q APPL-Q-go-3.SG EXC APPL-go-3.SG
Are you going with us to the concert?
Notes:
1. ⟨k’èvúkí⟩ "musical performance" < ⟨k’è⟩ "to hear" + ⟨vúkí⟩ "to sing, play (an instrument)"
2. Two applicatives are used: one for the lative "to the concert" ⟨k’èvúkí ķé-⟩, the other for the comitative "with us" ⟨q'a nku-⟩, duplicating the verb ⟨-kwa⟩ "to go (away)".
Is it just me or is there like no research in #LFG on disjunct #adverbials? I found an MPhil thesis on the typology and placement possibilities of #adverbs in English (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d808caba-2c2c-4b84-8ec3-f62d78c67ab3), but that explicitly excludes comma-intonated adverbials like sentence adverbials and other disjuncts. A subsequent paper on disjuncts specifically is referenced (Cobb 2006), but it was apparently never published.
Oh wow, #bonobos are using syntax! Scientists are floored to discover that humans aren't the only ones who can string words together 
. Next up: bonobos writing Shakespearean sonnets and solving crosswords? 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2474993-bonobos-use-a-kind-of-syntax-once-thought-to-be-unique-to-humans/ #syntax #language #science #discovery #animal #intelligence #humor #HackerNews #ngated
Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans
Bonobos communicate in ways more similar to ours than previously thought. Mélissa Berthet and her colleagues studied a group of these primates and found first ever proof of non-trivial compositionality in non-human vocalizations.
#bonobo #chimpanzee #chimp #ape #primate #primates #primatology #nature #science #wildlife #communication #syntax #linguistics #evolution
https://blogorgonopsid.blogspot.com/2025/04/lidska-rec-neni-vyjimecna-nasi.html
How about a clear #syntax structure in #OpenStreetMap for any #POI ? Such as #whatever
*:sales https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:sales
*:parts https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:parts
*:rental https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:rental
*:repair https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:repair
*:training https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:training
*:tours https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:tours
*:type https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:*:type
1/ I wonder why I wrote all my papers. Ok, at least they are cited, but then: why is all the content ignored. I developed a lexical analysis of Persian complex predicates in my paper. This can deal with all the cases that are cited in the piece below. There is no problem with the future auxiliary appearing in the middle of a complex predicate. It is the same as with particle verbs in German. They can also be separated.
13/ Das Kapitel zum #Lexikon ist auch fertig. Damit ist, glaube ich, das Schwierigste geschafft. Denn die Umstellung der #Semantik erforderte dann auch eine Revision der Lexikon-Macros, der Typhierarchie usw. Der Rest müsste jetzt einfach sein. Aber das dachte ich ja vom ganzen Buch auch.
Das Buch habe ich vor 20 Jahren geschrieben. Ich dachte, ich muss nur ein bisschen was aktualisieren, aber letztendlich muss man auch die Diskussion von Alternativen aktualisieren, denn zum Glück habe ich in den 20 Jahren etwas dazugelernt.
https://hpsg.hu-berlin.de/~stefan/Pub/hpsg-lehrbuch.html
Das Kapitel über topologische Felder ist auch schon fertig, aber das ist ja auch kurz.
12/ Also die Semantiker*innen beschäftigen sich mit Dingen, die es nicht gibt. Auch wenn es, wie wir jetzt herausgefunden haben, Einhörner gibt, werden sie sich sicher was neues Nicht-Existierendes suchen, mit dem sie dann ihre eingebetteten möglichen Welten bevölkern können. Vielleicht werden sie ja den Spracherwerbsforscher*innen das #Wug klauen.
https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Wug_test
Wir Syntaktiker*innen sind da besser: Wir beschäftigen uns mit Dingen, die es wirklich gibt. Ganz sicher! Nur leider sieht man sie manchmal nicht. Zum Beispiel ist am Ende des Satzes in der Abbildung ein Verb, das man aber leider nicht sehen kann. Aber es verhält sich wie ein Verb. Doch wirklich!
AIUI, in single-conjunct agreement, a single agreement target agrees with only the closest conjunct of a group of coordinated controllers.
C1 and C2 … T[C2]
T[C1] … C1 and C2
Is there also a term for the opposite case, where only the closer one of a group of coordinated targets properly agrees with a single controller?
C … T1[C] and T2[default]
#Rust has a new path to create a formal language specification for #syntax and #semantics.
Ferrous Systems is donating their work on a language specification to the rust project and the wider community.
@Xhuul I haven't found any decent #Markdown editor yet that convinced me.
And yes, I prefer Emacs with #orgmode.
I even write my text in Org and use the export-to-MD functions to generate the appropriate #MD.
That also saves me from remembering the MD-specifics of the current export target. I always mix up the MD flavors currently at hand because I need to use different MD-enabled tools on a daily basis and all of them have their special markup variants - sometimes it's even necessary to use, e.g., different table syntax (within the same MD tool!) for different table properties such as line breaks and stuff. It's really a bad mess with MD. 
Btw: https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only/
Signs Of Signs • 4
Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
But then inevitably I find myself wondering whether a proof assistant, or even a formal system, can make the distinction between “technical” and “fundamental” questions. There seems to be no logical distinction. The formalist answer might involve algorithmic complexity, but I don’t think that sheds any useful light on the question. The materialist answer (often? usually?) amounts to just‑so stories involving Darwin, and lions on the savannah, and maybe an elephant, or at least a mammoth. I don’t find these very satisfying either and would prefer to find something in between, and I would feel vindicated if it could be proved (in I don’t know what formal system) that the capacity to make such a distinction entails appreciation of music.
Peirce proposed a distinction between corollarial and theorematic reasoning in mathematics which strikes me as similar to the distinction Michael Harris seeks between technical and fundamental questions.
I can’t say I have a lot of insight into how the distinction might be drawn but I recall a number of traditions pointing to the etymology of theorem as having to do with the observation of objects and practices whose depth of detail always escapes full accounting by any number of partial views.
On the subject of music, all I have is the following incidental —
Perhaps it takes a number theorist to appreciate it …
Resources
cc: Academia.edu • BlueSky • Laws of Form • Mathstodon • Research Gate
cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
spent all my brain points today implementing some Real Stuff, so now i'm just chilling thinking about #syntax
the constraints:
N. no separate syntactic classes for types and other terms
N. ident intro xor use
N. function arguments are structs
N. modules are structs
my goal is a struct syntax, and i'm #stuck
i have four ideas, neither of which satisfies me
Signs Of Signs • 3
Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
And if we don’t [keep our stories straight], who puts us away?
One’s answer, or at least one’s initial response to that question will turn on how one feels about formal realities. As I understand it, reality is that which persists in thumping us on the head until we get what it’s trying to tell us. Are there formal realities, forms which drive us in that way?
Discussions like those tend to begin by supposing we can form a distinction between external and internal. That is a formal hypothesis, not yet born out as a formal reality. Are there formal realities which drive us to recognize them, to pick them out of a crowd of formal possibilities?
Resources
cc: Academia.edu • BlueSky • Laws of Form • Mathstodon • Research Gate
cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
Signs Of Signs • 2
Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
I compared mathematics to a “consensual hallucination”, like virtual reality, and I continue to believe that the aim is to get (consensually) to the point where that hallucination is a second nature.
I think that’s called coherentism, normally contrasted with or complementary to objectivism. It’s the philosophy of a gang of co‑conspirators who think, “We’ll get off scot‑free so long as we all keep our stories straight.”
Resources
cc: Academia.edu • BlueSky • Laws of Form • Mathstodon • Research Gate
cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
Signs Of Signs • 1
Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
There is a language and a corresponding literature treating logic and mathematics as related species of communication and information gathering, namely, the pragmatic‑semiotic tradition transmitted through the lifelong efforts of C.S. Peirce. It is by no means a dead language but it continues to fly beneath the radar of many trackers in logic and math today. Nevertheless, the resource remains for those who wish to look into it.
Resources
cc: Academia.edu • BlueSky • Laws of Form • Mathstodon • Research Gate
cc: Conceptual Graphs • Cybernetics • Structural Modeling • Systems Science
And Michael Tomasello's book "Origins of Human Communication" has a sentence 261 words long that's more intelligible than many sentences one tenth its length.
Clarity hinges on structure and sense, and his line uses 11 semicolons – here, the right choice – to form a precisely executed parallelism.
