RECURSION IN

GRAMMAR
EUDED – JUNE 2017
 Recursion in Grammar

According to Nirmalangshu Mukherji, "Recursion in language means

that a type may be embedded in the same type indefinitely,
performance factors aside" (The Primacy of Grammar, 2010). Lisa
Stokes/Getty Images
• Recursion is the repeated sequential use of a
particular type of linguistic element
or grammatical structure. Also called linguistic
recursion.
• Recursion has also been described more simply as
the ability to place one component inside another
component of the same kind.
• A linguistic element or grammatical structure that can
be used repeatedly in sequence is said to
be recursive.
EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

• "If you build an earthen home now, think of the wonder on

the face of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great grandchild!"
(Ianto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley, The
Hand-Sculpted House: A Philosophical and Practical Guide
to Building a Cob Cottage. Chelsea Green, 2002)
• Some . . . affixes are mildly recursive: re-re-write, anti-anti-
war, great-great-grandmother. This type
of morphological recursion (where the same affixal form is
repeated without intervening morphemes) appears to be
unique to this functional category across languages, though
most . . . affixes are not recursive."
(Edward J. Vajda, "Referential and Grammatical Function in
Morphological Typology." Linguistic Diversity and Language
Theories, ed. by Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Adam Hodges, and
David S. Rood. John Benkamins, 2005)
• "He can take a letter from you to her and then one from her
to you and then one from you to her and then one from her to
you and then one from you to her and then one . . ."
(P.G. Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves, 1934)
• "Didn't matter if the fe-fe was a VP, VIP, stay-at-home wife,
his wife, his sister, a lover, an employee, an associate, a
groupie, a counterpart, smart, fine, dumb, ugly, dumb and
ugly, a model, a hooker, a Christian, his best friend, or his
mother."
(Mary B. Morrison, He's Just a Friend. Kensington, 2003)
• (4a) The tiger is a large, fierce carnivore.
(4b) He was a tall, handsome, witty doctor.
(4c) They were inky, dusty, grey old men.
"The fact that English permits more than one adjective in a sequence in
this manner is an example of a more general feature of languages that
linguists call recursion. In English, prenominal adjectives are recursive.
Simply put, this means that prenominal adjectives can be 'stacked,' with
several appearing successively in a string, each of them attributing some
property to the noun. In principle, there is no limit to the number of
adjectives that can modify a noun. Or better, there is no grammatical
limit."
(Martin J. Endley, Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar: A Guide
for EFL Teachers. Information Age, 2010)
• A Stack of Bowls
"In English, recursion is often used to create expressions that modify
or change the meaning of one of the elements of the sentence. For
example, to take the word nails and give it a more specific meaning, we
could use an objectrelative clause such as that Dan bought, as in
• Hand me the nails that Dan bought.
• In this sentence, the relative clause that Dan bought (which could be
glossed as Dan bought the nails) is contained within a larger noun
phrase: the nails (that Dan bought (the nails)). So the relative clause is
nested within a larger phrase, kind of like a stack of bowls."
(Matthew J. Traxler, Introduction to Psycholinguistics: Understanding
Language Science. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)
RECURSION AND INFINITUDE
• "[One] factor that encourages linguists to believe that human languages are
infinite sets stems from a presumed connection between linguistic creativity
and the infinite cardinality of languages. Note, for example, this statement
by [Noam] Chomsky (1980: 221-222):
• . . . the rules of the grammar must iterate in some manner to generate an
infinite number of sentences, each with its specific sound, structure, and
meaning. We make use of this 'recursive' property of grammar constantly in
everyday life. We construct new sentences freely and use them on
appropriate occasions...
• He is suggesting that because we construct new sentences, we must be
using recursion, so the grammar must generate infinitely many sentences.
Note also the remark of Lasnik (2000: 3) that 'The ability to produce and
understand new sentences is intuitively related to the notion of infinity.'
• "No one will deny that human beings have a marvelous, highly flexible
array of linguistic abilities. These abilities are not just a matter of being
able to respond verbally to novel circumstances, but of being capable
of expressing novel propositions, and of re-expressing familiar
propositions in new ways. But infinitude of the set of all grammatical
expressions is neither necessary nor sufficient to describe or explain
linguistic creativity. . . .
• "Infinitude of human languages has not been independently
established--and could not be. It does not represent a factual claim that
can be used to support the idea that the properties of human language
must be explicated via generative grammars involving recursion.
Positing a generative grammar does not entail infinitude for the
generated language anyway, even if there is recursion present in the
rule system."
(Geoffrey K. Pullum and Barbara C. Scholz, "Recursion and the
Infinitude Claim." Recursion and Human Language, ed. by Harry Van
Der Hulst. Walter de Gruyter, 2010)
QUESTIONS FOR THE STUDENTS ATTENDING THE
VIDEOCONFERENCE:

1. What do speakers of a language can recognize of and know about their

language?
1. What are the phrase structure rules?
2. What is recursión?