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1.3.13Word Combinations in Language Evolution
Chomsky pointed out the following:
- Pretty much every sentence that everyone utters is a different combination of words, never heard before.
- That means it’s impossible to store all sentences in the brain.
- That means, in the long process of language evolution, the brain must have evolved a mechanism for putting words together in a meaningful way.
- That means the brain can tell the difference between a combination of words that makes sense, and a combination that doesn't, such as, "Pickles patient lamented occidental Custer stapler."
Here’s how Steven Pinker describes the combinatorial nature of the brain’s evolved language modules:
A finite number of discrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled, combined, and permuted to create larger structures (in this case, sentences) with properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements. For example, the meaning of Man bites dog is different from the meaning of the same words combined in reverse order.
It’s possible, therefore, to construct a practically infinite number of sentences with a relatively limited vocabulary.
The same applies to music:
- A scale has a finite number of different pitches.
- Each pitch can last for a finite number of different time values.
- Each pitch can be combined with a finite number of other pitches to create a finite number of intervals and chords. And so on.