Longest English sentence
There have been several claims for the longest sentence in the English language, usually with claims that revolve around the longest printed sentence, because there is no limit on the possible length of a written English sentence.
At least one linguistics textbook concludes that, in theory, "there is no longest English sentence."[1] A sentence can be made arbitrarily long by successive iterations, such as Someone thinks that someone thinks that someone thinks that...,[2] or by combining shorter clauses in various ways.
For example, sentences can be extended by recursively embedding clauses one into another, such as [3][4]
- The mouse ran away
- The mouse that the cat bit ran away
- ...
- The mouse that the cat that the dog that the man frightened chased bit ran away
The ability to embed structures within larger ones is called recursion.[5] This also highlights the difference between linguistic performance and linguistic competence, because the language can support more variation than can reasonably be created or recorded.[2]
See also
- Longest word in English
- Longest words
- Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
References
- ^ Steven E. Weisler; Slavoljub P. Milekic; Slavko Milekic (2000). Theory of Language. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-73125-6.
- ^ a b Stephen Crain; Diane Lillo-Martin (1999). An Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-631-19536-8.
- ^ Christiansen, Morten H.; Chater, Nick (1999). "Toward a Connectionist Model of Recursion in Human Linguistic Performance". Cognitive Science. 23 (2): 157–205. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog2302_2.
- ^ Thomas R. Shultz (2003). Computational Developmental Psychology. p. 236. ISBN 9780132288064.
- ^ Carnie, Andrew (2013). Syntax: A Generative Introduction (third ed.). Singapore: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-470-65531-3.