Talk:List of linguistic example sentences

Martin Gardner's ambiguity

From the page: In a similar vein, Martin Gardner offered the example: Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

Surely Martin Gardner is aware that his sentence would be clearer if quotation marks were placed before Fish, and between fish and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and And, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips. I assume his overlooking of this was deliberate in order to spur the reader to further extrapolate on the absurdity of omitting quotation marks. (This sentence, incidentally, has 86 identical words in a row.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.192.65 (talk) 15:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it

I'm not sure I understand what this example is meant to show. The article cited seems to claim that it cannot be expressed satisfactorily in first-order predicate language, but $\forall x\forall y((Fx\land Dy\land Oxy)\to Bxy)$ seems to express the intended meaning (with Fx meaning "x is a farmer", Dx meaning "x is a donkey", Oxy meaning "x owns y", and Bxy meaning "x beats y"). It's possible that I've made a foolish error in the translation, or that I misunderstood the reason for including the sentence, but if not, it doesn't seem to be a particularly interesting sentence.69.239.253.34 (talk) 09:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I find this variant easier for me to understand: "Every boxer loves a woman", which could be translated as $\forall x(Bx\rightarrow \exists y(Wy\wedge Lxy))$ (more intuitive), or if you think about it $\exists y(Wy\wedge \forall x(Bx\rightarrow Lxy))$ (imagine following up the sentence with "...and her name is Mia". This example comes from Representation and Inference for Natural Language, Blackburn and Bos -- kowey (talk) 09:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It could mean that every farmer who owns a donkey leaves. --192.235.8.1 (talk) 16:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Translation error (going off of the previous comment by user 192.235.8.1): In American English "to beat it" is an idiomatic expression that means "to go away/leave".

The two most likely interpretations (in American English) are:

1) "Every farmer, who owns a donkey, beats it (literally hits it/commits animal cruelty)"

2) "Every farmer who owns a donkey 'beats it'= Every farmer who owns a donkey goes away/gets out of the business of donkey-ownership".

It is a very problematic example of ambiguity because it contains a very idiomatic American English phrase that can have multiple meanings in American English, but only one meaning in other English varieties. It is probably a good idea to have an explanation of the American English meaning(s) for "beat it".

Brianc26 (talk) 08:04, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Ending in a prep

"Change we can believe in" ?

--Mainstreetmark (talk) 20:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Girls School?

IIRC, the Lojban published materials list the phrase "pretty little girls school" as an ambiguous one - but would it be an example of lexical or syntactic ambiguity? (I'd thing syntactic, but the article on the topic states outright that syntactic ambiguity is a sentence issue, not a phrasal one.) --Jay (Histrion) (talk • contribs) 19:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It is clearly syntactically ambiguous. The other article is totally wrong. It's not even clear what "syntactic ambiguity is a sentence issue, not a phrasal one" could even mean. Ailun (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Syntactic ambiguity?

Isn't "we saw her duck" a case of lexical rather than syntactic ambiguity?91.98.205.87 (talk) 15:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

While someone below claims it is syntactic ambiguity, I'm inclined to agree with you: it is a change in the entire lexical item in question that results in the sentence being parsed in a syntactically different way. I might even prefer to describe it as semantic ambiguity- unlike a lexically ambiguous sentence like, "Nice rock."--66.229.200.194 (talk) 04:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Ending in verbs

"The girl the dog the boy hit bit cried."

Or, rearranged:

"The girl ([that] (the dog [that] (the boy) hit) bit) cried."

"The girl (who was bitten by the dog (that was hit by the boy)) cried."

I'd like to add it to the article, but I don't see an obvious section in which it belongs. — Loadmaster (talk) 05:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Embedding? 98.25.113.100 (talk) 17:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Not Syntactically Ambiguous

"The criminal experienced a seizure." is not syntactically ambiguous. It's lexically ambiguous, based on two different sense of "seizure" which are still the same part of speech and still play the same role in the sentence.

"While the man was hunting the deer ran through the forest." is also wrong. This is a garden path sentence. It is not syntactically ambiguous because the alternate parse is ungrammatical.

"We saw her duck." is syntactic ambiguity. The two senses of duck are different parts of speech and require different parses. The first, in which "duck" is a noun, there is only one clause, but if "duck" is a verb then it's two.

"The girl the dog the boy hit bit cried." is an example of center embedding. Ailun (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I added it to the article. — Loadmaster (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

All sentences are linguistic examples

I'm not convinced that this page, as it appears currently, is either encyclopedic or notable. It certainly needs better sourcing. At the very least, editors should review WP:Stand-alone lists and ensure that this page meets criteria for explicitness and lack of ambiguity, and that the topic is appropriate for a list. Since every sentence is, by definition, an illustration of linguistic phenomena, under the current minimal criteria this list is potentially infinite. Cnilep (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well said. But let's accept that certain examples gain an encyclopedic fame. (After all, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" will sound familiar to many people.) And let's not begrudge people their recreational linguistics -- as long as it is real linguistics, not cod linguistics. I'd say that this is the kind of article that's intrinsically worthless but for which an AfD would be sure to fail, so we're stuck with it, or something worse or better.

I think the article is even worse than you suggest. Those of us who unfortunately don't read one or other of the languages for which examples are given have no reason even to think that the examples are possible or say what they are claimed to say: after all, only a minuscule percentage of the non-English examples are sourced. For all I know, most could be entirely fraudulent.

As for the English examples, some (significant or otherwise) are presented to demonstrate things that they don't demonstrate. I hope that I at least fixed the "Churchillian" canard. -- Hoary (talk) 01:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Fit fit fits fit ski?

Why is this listed under Glaswegian/Southwestern Scots? As a native of Southwest Scotland and frequent visitor to Glasgow, I don't believe I have ever heard the word "fit" used to mean "what" or "which" in these parts of the country. It's a Northern Scotticism one would expect to hear, for example, in Aberdeenshire. In Glasgow or Dumfriesshire we would say "whit" meaning "what" (Whit fit fits whit ski?). Contains Mild Peril (talk) 18:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Cod, cod, etc

Why did someone remove this item. It is a valid example of this sort of sentence, and much more interesting than the rather silly Buffalo one.BevRowe (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)BevRowe

What does it mean, and what does it illustrate? It's not really a "linguistic example sentence" unless it is a meaningful sentence and illustrates a linguistic phenomenon. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

If you removed it because you did not understand it, that is a form of vandalism. Unfortunately the explanation has also been removed, for equally poor reasons. Please leave it there for the moment, be assured that it at least as meaningful as the Buffalo nonsense, and let me try to get the explanation reinstated. I assure you this is a grammatically valid sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BevRowe (talk • contribs) 10:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I have now reinstated the explanation. Please read it. BevRowe (talk) 11:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)BevRowe

Even if this were serious, it is original research and something you made up. Knock it off. --Glenfarclas (talk) 11:08, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Glen. After reading the page you wrote, it's obvious that this is just something you came up with. It's not a notable sentence, and even if it weren't something you made up it still doesn't demonstrate anything that the Buffalo sentence doesn't. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read the sentence in question. But I can hardly blame an editor for sticking in their own sentence. Just look above: in "Not Syntactically Ambiguous" Ailun appears to make up a sentence to exemplify (and does this well, I think); and immediately below that in All sentences are linguistic examples seems to agree with me that making up example sentences is a standard procedure in linguistics (or anyway that majority of linguistics that isn't rigidly corpus-based).

This "list" is a bizarre mixture of famous examples ("colorless green ideas", "Buffalo"×8), oft-repeated canards ("up with which I will not put"), sentences or non-sentences apparently written of the tops of editors' heads, humdrum sentences unmemorably mentioned by this or that writer on writing, and jolly tongue twisters that either come from around the world as is claimed or were just made up by bored nitwits during school breaks (as only one was sourced the last time I looked, I don't know). And it will remain a mess until rethought and retitled.

Perhaps a split into "List of notable sentences in linguistics" (note the "notable") and "List of tongue-twisters". -- 01:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)~

I support moving to List of notable sentences in linguistics. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Too many examples?

Do we really need 12 examples of say, Lexical Ambiguity? Can't we limit ourselves to the most famous ones or something, or those which illustrate something interesting? -- kowey (talk) 10:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

"Police help dog bite victim" removal

Right; "police help dog bite victim" doesn't make sense. Even if we split "police help dog" away from the phrase, the ending would either have to be "bites victim" or "bite victims". Could someone explain this and give themselves justification for retaining such an example on the article? Kevin Steinhardt (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The sentence has two readings:

1. Police help a [dog bite victim]
2. Police help (a) dog (to) bite (a) victim.

To understand it, you need to realize that the sentence is written in headlinese grammar. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as the 1st reading goes, it would be more accurate to use the hyphenated compound modifier "dog-bite victim", but that would negate the deliberate ploy by the editor to create an ambiguous headline - and thereby attract more readers - Ian 165.143.155.57 (talk) 09:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Hyphenation works differently in different varieties of English. I don't know your variety, but for me (General American), we would not say "a dog-bite"--we wouldn't use a hyphen in this sentence. 86.73.48.198 (talk) 11:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

We wouldn't write "a dog-bite" (noun), but we would write "a dog-bite victim" (adjective). 24.61.4.237 (talk) 03:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Fear the king not to kill is good

I was given this sentence once as an example of how comma placement (does it go before or after "not") can completely change the meaning of the command. But I've never been able to find this example mentioned elsewhere. Is anyone else familiar with it? Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Search the article, Wikipedia, or the web, for "occidere nolite". There are several variants, one beginning in "Eduardum (Edwardum) occidere nolite" and one in "reginam occidere nolite". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Problems: Idiomaticity

One of the examples under syntactic ambiguity "every farmer who owns a donkey beats it" contains extremely idiomatic English. The sentence is only ambiguous to English speakers familiar with the idiomatic phrase "to beat it"="to leave/to go away". On the "every farmer who owns a donkey beats it" section, two users debated about its possible meanings, and neither found the actual ambiguity:

"I'm not sure I understand what this example is meant to show. The article cited seems to claim that it cannot be expressed satisfactorily in first-order predicate language, but seems to express the intended meaning (with Fx meaning "x is a farmer", Dx meaning 'x is a donkey", Oxy meaning "x owns y", and Bxy meaning "x beats y'). It's possible that I've made a foolish error in the translation, or that I misunderstood the reason for including the sentence, but if not, it doesn't seem to be a particularly interesting sentence."

"I find this variant easier for me to understand: 'Every boxer loves a woman', which could be translated as (more intuitive), or if you think about it (imagine following up the sentence with "...and her name is Mia". This example comes from Representation and Inference for Natural Language, Blackburn and Bos"

Because the phrase "to beat it" meaning "to go away" does not seem to be a part of some English speaker's (even native speaker's) active vocabulary, an explanation has been added to the articleBrianc26 (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

"Hole found in changing room wall; police are looking into it."

The above sentence is listed under "Syntactical ambiguity". I think the ambiguity is more semantic than syntactic. "Police are looking into it" can be interpreted in the usual way, or in the more literal way invited by the context; but the parse tree is the same. I'm going to remove it. If you're in disagreement, please say so. Genialimbecile (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Compound use

The unwanted book was a book of stories about Australia. "What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.4.237 (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Lack of punctuation in examples in lexical ambiguity

I don't think the point is to be lexically ambiguous on purpose by leaving out obvious punctuation at the end of sentences, or normal pauses/inflection one would make in their speech to clarify the sentences, so why do many of them have a convention-less version and then a grammatically correct one (which would be actually seen in writing, or to some extent spoken)? It seems like the examples' goals are to make you figure out the sentence first, on your own. atomic7732 19:50, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Where's that FIlipino one-syllable dialogue thingamagook?

I had seen a Filipino example of one-syllable dialogue one.

"Bababa ba?" "Bababa."

"Is [the elevator] going down?" "[Yes], going down."

Should such be included? Or would citations be needed first? --Dan2paul (talk) 13:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Toilet out of order. Please use floor below.

How is this syntactic ambiguity? It seems more like ambiguity between polysemes (between floor (1) and floor (3)/storey in Wiktionary) -- the grammatical structure is the same in both cases.

2001:BF8:200:FF68:42A8:F0FF:FE43:FAC7 (talk)

11, 22

I throw this is for whoever wants to fit it in. Heard it decades ago.

"11 was 1 racehorse,
22 was 12.
1111 race,
22112."

The trick is to read the numbers individually, so the last line for example is "Two Two won one too". The last two lines can also be re-written as:

"2211 race,
11112."

The Yeti (talk) 00:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

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Turning socks

You can't turn socks from inside out to outside in because inside out and outside in are the same state of sock.