Garden Path Sentences 2

[ESquared]

A garden path sentence is one that is grammatically correct, but due to peculiarities of the human brain and the complexities of syntactic processing (PDF) and disambiguation, tend to be parsed incorrectly. First I will give some examples, then will be the challenge: invent your own garden path sentences!

Here's the "classic" garden path sentence, at least, it seems to be the one that all the more technical articles referenced when I first learned about this a couple of years ago: (There are a lot more references on the web to the subject now than there used to be.)

The horse raced past the barn fell.

This sentence tends to be parsed incorrectly because we take the verb raced to be something the horse is doing. But in fact, in this sentence, raced is something being done to the horse. Perhaps you would parse it correctly if there were some disambiguating words:

The horse that was raced past the barn fell.

To make it even more explicit:

The horse--the one that George raced past the barn--fell.

Normally, these kinds of parsing errors are quickly sorted out. But in this case, because of the distance between the actual intransitive verb fell and the subject horse doing it, we get tripped up.

Here are some more:

The old man the boats.
Mary gave the child the dog bit a bandaid.
The landlord painted the walls with cracks. (PDF)
The prime number few.

Last, here's another interesting outline on the subject.

Invent your own garden path sentences! If you repeat any that are not your original inventions, link or otherwise reference them, and clearly mark which are your own and which are not.

 

[ESquared]

Ooh! Ooh! Good topic, ESquared, I love these kinds of sentences. Here are a couple I've invented:

The men run through the arches screamed.
The umpire called Three strikes the pitcher.

 

[RodKnowlton]

Until last Thursday in England:

The hunting hound the fox.

 

[RodKnowlton]

Interesting subject, ESquared.

Very tricky to write, since one can't trick oneself into incorrectly parsing something that they just wrote.

The post read twice puzzled.

Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L
CompTIA Linux+
CompTIA Security+

 

[CrystalStart]

I can't do it to save my life :-D

 

[renirambus]

I have heard the following mentioned as an indication of how difficult it will be to develop any real Artificial Intelligence:
Design a computer that can differentiate between
"Time flies like an arrow" and
"Fruit flies like a banana".

 

[CajunCenturion]

renirambus - Computationally dealing with both of these two is fairly straight-forward. The first sentence is straight-forward because 'time' cannot function as a adjective, (the adjective is timely), therefore, there is no ambiguity. Since 'time' must be a noun, then 'flies' must be the verb. The ability of time to fly is a long accepted semantic property.

In the second sentence, you have two possible grammatical constructs, although one is actually suspect, which might lead to ambiguity. In the first case, 'fruit' can be an adjective to the noun 'flies' with 'like' functioning as the verb. In the second interpretation, 'fruit' is the noun with 'flies' as the verb and 'like' functioning as a preposition. However, only one interpretation makes semantic sense, disregarding poetic license. Fruit, as a noun, does not have the property of flight, that is, the type of noun 'fruit' does not match up with the type of action verb 'to fly'; therefore, although the first option is grammatically correct, it is non-sensical semantically. Further, flies, as an 'animate' noun, is cabable of 'liking', which further supports the second interpreation. However, the second sentence does have another problem, that being subject-verb agreement. The computer would be much happier with 'fruit flies like bananas' (plural subject and plural predicate) than with the statement as presented with a plural subject and singular predicate.

There are substantial difficulties in computation linguistics, but considerable progress has been made in quantifying the grammatical rules, and in the semantical relationship between nouns and verbs with respect to inherant properties.

The hardest part with natural language, is that it's constantly evolving, and knowledge of grammar rules is very suspect. Even with knowledge, adherence to them is a greater challenge.

Good Luck
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[RodKnowlton]

CajunCenturion,

"Time flies like an arrow" could also be an imperative.

For example: you have previously established a protocol for timing an arrow, which I would now like you to apply to the flies bothering us at our picnic.

We can see, of course, which interpretation is more likely to be correct, but it's not so simple for a program. Semantic meaning is the problem with computationally dealing with language, not the answer.

What is the algorithm for "learning and knowing" as opposed to "storing and retrieving"? My money says it's the key to real AI, as opposed to the attempts we have so far.

Obligitory On Topic:

CajunCenturion's computer learned programs runs.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Very good. Your imperative interpretation is great. I would love to discuss the semantics issue at length, as it works both ways, but it would not be appropriate to hijack this thread to do so.

Good Luck
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To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[ESquared]

Meaning influences sentence parsing.

The spy watched the cop with the binoculars.
The spy watched the cop with the gun.

In the first sentence, the binoculars modifies watched. In the second sentence, the gun modifies cop.

But yes, please do keep on topic! I've been more active in deleting off-topic posts, lately.

 

[RodKnowlton]

Can a Garden Path Sentence be self-referential?

My homage to Douglas Hofstadter:

This sentence to be read is unfair.

[COLOR=white]Picture the sentence itself in court, being sentenced to be read. Then imagine the sentence (of words) itself is telling you how it feels about that "sentence (punishment) to be read"

Wow. Throwing in self-reference makes it even harder to explain the correct parsing. :-)
[/color]

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> The spy watched the cop with the binoculars.
In the first sentence, the binoculars modifies watched. In the second sentence, the gun modifies cop.

If your intent is to have the spy use the binoculars to watch the cop, then I submit that you have a misplaced modifier. The prepositional phrase should modify the closer of the two nouns.

Good Luck
--------------
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[ESquared]

Whether or not there is a grammatical mistake in the sentence (which I think could be in question) it's still a great example of how meaning influences parsing. We parse ungrammatical sentences the same way that we parse grammatical ones.

 

[tsdragon]

...because 'time' cannot function as a adjective...

What about "time trials", "time clocks", "time cards" and that sort of thing?


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[CajunCenturion]

tsgradon - Point taken.

Parsing and semantic interpretation are two different things.

Good Luck
--------------
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[RodKnowlton]

I realized today, when I wrote the earlier one down incorrectly, that this also works:

The hunting hounds the fox.

Got anymore, E²? These are fun.

 

[ESquared]

I like to break them into two lines, it exacerbates the parsing problem when done strategically.

When I took the boy his lunch
was already lost.

The frog jumped over
by the boy did not move.

As you read this sentence
will completely transform.

I forgot my wallet at home
was too shabby to use anymore.

I know the president of the United States
is a Republican.

While I ate a temptingly delicious breakfast
was served to the man next to me.

I made a sandwich with peanut butter and jelly
was the ingredient John chose for his.

While I sang the music
stopped playing.

The man who sells dogs
me continually.

The Counterstrike player who killed the most turtles
too much.

Fat people eat
accumulates. (not my own)


All are original except where noted. Although, I had help in construction from seeing online examples.

 

[SantaMufasa]

Ambiguity in "Garden Path" sentences results from one writing imprecisely. Although analyzing and interpreting such sentences can be entertaining, I suggest that re-writing "Garden Path" sentences into examples of unambiguous precision writing is even more entertaining.

One of my favourite examples of imprecise writing is when the father was helping his son to use tools:

"Son, I'll hold the nail and you hold the hammer. When I nod my head, you hit it."

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)

http://www.dasages.com

@ 19:55 (23Feb05) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"),
@ 12:55 (23Feb05) Mountain Time

 

[ESquared]

From my mother, years ago:

Throw the cow over the fence
some hay.


SantaMufasa, this is the Wordplay forum! Ambiguity is a staple food here!

 

[ESquared]

SantaMufasa,

Actually, the more I think about it, the less I am convinced that garden path sentences are a product of imprecision. They are more an artifact of language.

It's just like pixelation, which is an artifact of digitizing. If you manipulate an image in certain ways or intentionally use certain colors and shades, the pixelation becomes more noticeable... but this isn't a flaw in the digitizing method but rather a built-in feature of it.

It is true that avoiding obvious ambiguities is desirable, but much of the time, context (and when spoken, a host of other cues) carry the meaning adequately.

If I ask, "who mans the boats?" the answer "the old man the boats" will be perfectly clear to me. There is nothing inherently imprecise about it except for that introduced by our parsing process.