L is for Linguistic Methods (and lions)

Linguistic Methods

• As the Greek ‘houses of the donkeys of the servants of the masters’ problem shows, many recursive problems need to be approached via ‘find & replace’ rules from several different linguistic methods…

The Lexical “Linguistic Method” involves identifying the root lexemes

The following is excerpted from Mirjam Fried’s ‘Kannada’ problem…

manege 'to (the) house' peeTege 'to (the) market' tandege 'to dad‘roTTige 'to (the) flat bread' chaTNige 'to (the)

chutney‘hakkige 'to (the) bird'taayige 'to (the) mother'jooLakke 'to (the) corn'pustakakke 'to (the) book'simhakke 'to (the) lion'kalkattakke 'to Calcutta'manushyanige 'to (the) man'ammanige 'to mum'huDuganige 'to (the) boy'sneehitanige 'to (the) friend'

First step - Identify the root morphemes ‘house’, market,’ etc.

For the purpose of this puzzle, the Kannada letters are transcribed using the Roman alphabet. The letters L, D, T, and N represent a special pronunciation {‘la,’ ‘tha,’ etc.} with the tongue curled upward. (There is no definite article in Kannada.)

manege 'to (the) house' peeTege 'to (the) market' tandege 'to dad‘roTTige 'to (the) flat bread' chaTNige 'to (the) chutney‘hakkige 'to (the) bird'taayige 'to (the) mother'jooLakke 'to (the) corn'pustakakke 'to (the) book'simhakke 'to (the) lion'kalkattakke 'to Calcutta'manushyanige 'to (the) man'ammanige 'to mum'huDuganige 'to (the) boy'sneehitanige 'to (the) friend'

Second step – Find the parts of the words that correspond to the English preposition 'to‘

Third step - what is the “rule” determining the different forms?

The morphological linguistic method identifies the ‘grammatical’ or ‘function’ parts of the word – the ‘bound morphemes

manege 'to (the) house'

peeTege 'to (the) market' tandege

'to dad‘roTTige

'to (the) flat bread' chaTNige 'to (the) chutney‘hakkige

'to (the) bird'taayige

'to (the) mother'jooLakke 'to (the) corn'pustakakke 'to (the) book'simhakke 'to (the) lion'kalkattakke 'to Calcutta'manushyanige 'to (the) man'ammanige 'to mum'huDuganige 'to (the) boy'

sneehitanige 'to (the) friend'

2. Given these new words in Kannada, can you complete the table?

hamsa 'swan‘ ..…. 'to (the) swan'akka 'older sister' . 'to (the) older sister'tangi 'younger sister' …’to (the) younger sister'

While root lexemes are fixed, ‘bound morphemes are ‘productive’ or ‘generative’ in that they generate new forms…

So, the Greek problem…

• Have a good look at ‘the Greek problem’ – spend about ten minutes just thinking about what the systems must be…

• Then think about the systems, well, systematically…

• What are the root lexemes?• What are the word order rules?

So, the Greek problem…

• Starting with the root lexemes gives:• hyi son• dul slave• cyri master• oic house• on donkey• adelph brother• empor merchant

So, the Greek problem…

• What are the word order rules?

So, the Greek problem…The word order rule is…?

Each sentence starts with two articles, which are followed by two nouns.

So, the Greek problem…

• What are the grammatical rules:• [How can you tell what word class a word

belongs to] &• [which class of words go where]?

So, the Greek problem…The ‘grammatical’ rules are…?The first article starts with "h". The second article starts with "t". Combining lexical root rules and word order rules gives:The first noun is the owner, and the second noun is the thing that

is owned.

So, the Greek problem…

• What are the morphological rules:• [How can you tell that word is possessed

or possessor]? • [How can you tell that word is singular or

plural]?

So, the Greek problem…The grammatical morpheme analysis reveals the grammatical

number:• For the owner (first noun in Greek; second noun in English):• "o:n" is plural and "u" is singular. • For the owned (second noun in Greek; first noun in English):• "oi" is plural and "os" is singular.

Matching of articles and nouns:• The first article has an ending that matches the owned

noun:("ho" is singular and "hoi" is plural).Examples:ho .... dulosthe ... slave (singular)hoi ... cyroithe ... masters (plural)• The second article matches the owner:("tu" is singular and "tOn" is plural). Examples:tu cyriuthe master (singular)to:n hyio:n the sons (plural)

• So, the translations are:the houses of the merchants

• hoi tOn emporOn oicoi[Start with "hoi" because the owned noun (houses) is plural.The next word is "tOn" because the owner (merchants) is plural.The next word is the owner, which will be the root "empor" with the

plural ending “On".The next word is the owned noun, which will be the root "oic" with

theplural ending "oi".]the donkeys of the slave

• hoi tu dulu onoi[Start with "hoi" because the owned noun (donkeys) is plural.The next word is "tu" because the owner (slave) is singular. The next word is the owner, which will be the root "dul" with thesingular ending "u".The next word is the owned noun, which will be the root "on" with

the plural ending "oi".]

• Kannada is one of the major languages of India, spoken by more than 25 million people primarily in the South of the country, near Bangalore.

• It is a very old language and it uses its own writing system

Note

1. That this is a syllabic system - all syllables end in a vowel phoneme

2. The different ‘minimal pairs’ – not just ‘t’/’d’ as in English, but ‘t’/‘tha,’ etc.