Johanna,

Great example!  Another one that I'll borrow shamelessly, with
attribution, of course.

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Johanna Rubba
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 3:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On innate knowledge of language

My favorite nesting example is one that I think can't be said in any 
way that would make it comprehensible beyond the first or second 
embedding.

Imagine a sign on a wall. It says "post no signs".

Some joker comes along and glues another sign over it:

"post no 'post no signs' signs"

And, of course, yet another joker comes along and ... you guessed it --

"post no 'post no "post no signs" signs' signs"

and so on ...

"post no 'post no "post no 'post no signs' signs" signs' signs"

As soon as there are three "signs" at the end, I'm gone.

Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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