Resolving the Infinitude Controversy

Journal of Logic, Language and Information 23 (4):481-492 (2014)
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Abstract

A simple inductive argument shows natural languages to have infinitly many sentences, but workers in the field have uncovered clear evidence of a diverse group of ‘exceptional’ languages from Proto-Uralic to Dyirbal and most recently, Pirahã, that appear to lack recursive devices entirely. We argue that in an information-theoretic setting non-recursive natural languages appear neither exceptional nor functionally inferior to the recursive majority

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References found in this work

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.Noam Chomsky - 1965 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.Ann S. Ferebee - 1965 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 35 (1):167.
Syntactic Structures.J. F. Staal - 1966 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 31 (2):245-251.
A Mathematical Theory of Communication.Claude Elwood Shannon - 1948 - Bell System Technical Journal 27 (April 1924):379–423.

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