p243

Computer languages (addendum): 

Computer languages are characterized by simple grammatical structures. This is because computers cannot use the external world to check the correctness of a certain statement. Consequently, the ‘language’ must be constructed on a simple rule that allows definite rules to judge the correctness of a given statement. Thus, the grammatical rules become finitary and recursive. 

 In contrast, many people must feel that natural languages are not completely recursive, and not quite finitary . The reason is, as discussed already, natural languages has more complex natural intelligence as their source. However, it is still an important fact that natural language suggests possible formalizability that invited Chomsky’s serious efforts (we could say natural language is crystallizing into formalizable language ). It is also noteworthy that descriptive grammar is ancient. In short, natural language looks, to a considerable extent, formalizable. It is an interesting question why it is so. (This might be related to the observation that the complexity attainable by Darwin processes has a bound).

 Incidentally, there is another serious difference between natural and artificial languages. That is the strictness of the distinction between hardwares and softwares. Artificial intelligence always have a clearcut distinction between them. In contrast, for our natural language the distinction is rather nebulous. Consequently, we can have a question such as ‘the butterfly dream’ (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi ), that is, the story is not closed within the software. That softwares are not quite separated from hardwares may be one of the important features of complex systems. 

The butterfly dream:

昔者莊周夢為蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自 喻 適志與，不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與？周與蝴蝶則必有分矣。此之謂物化。

Critique of generative grammar

See Part 2 of D. L. Everett,  Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes Life and language in the Amazonian jungle  (Pantheon 2008) already quoted on p199 . See also

E S Reich, War of words over tribal tongue  Pirahan Debate highlights pitfalls in studying minority languages. Nature  485 155 (2012).

Because Everett has spent far more time than anyone else living among the Pirahã and studying their language (some eight years, by his estimate), it has been difficult for other researchers to evaluate his claims, says Jan-Wouter Zwart, a linguist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “All I know about Pirahã is from his grammar, and that’s true for all of us. We are typically dependent on a single person’s work.”

* Many such languages have been studied by just a single linguist, so that other researchers must rely on that person’s translations.