Center embedding

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In linguistics, center embedding refers to the process of embedding a phrase in the middle of another phrase of the same type. This often leads to difficulty with parsing which it would not be parsimonious to explain on grammatical grounds. The most frequently used example involves embedding a relative clause inside another one as in:

A man that a woman loves

A man that a woman that a child knows loves

A man that a woman that a child that a bird saw knows loves

A man that a woman that a child that a bird that I heard saw knows loves

In theories of natural language parsing, the difficulty with multiple center embeddings is thought to arise from limitations of the human short term memory. In order to process multiple center embeddings, we have to store many subjects in order to connect them to their predicates.

An interesting theoretical point is that sentences with multiple centre-embedding are grammatical, but unacceptable. Such examples are behind Chomsky's comment that, “Languages are not 'designed for parsability' ... we may say that languages, as such, are not usable.” (Chomsky, 1991)

[edit] External links

• New speech disorder linguists contracted discovered!: A humorous example of excessive center embedding. The general gist is quite understandable, but the details of the relationships are hard to manage.

[edit] References

Chomsky, N. (1991). Linguistics and Adjacent Fields: a Personal View. In A. Kasher (Ed.), The Chomskyan Turn. (pp. 3–25). Cambridge, Mass: Basil Blackwell.