What is it about?
Language is made of words that are arranged according to the rules of grammar; computer programs are made of symbols arranged according to rules which say when programs are valid or not. We argue that the two sets of rules are surprisingly similar.
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Why is it important?
It means that we can use grammar and computer programming to shed light on each other. We are familiar with using language and find it easy,, but it is not easy to say what exactly the rules are. On the other hand, it is easy to say what the rules of programming are (computer scientists invent computer languages and write their rules down), but actually programming computers is rather hard and obscure. Similarities between language and computer programming make it easier to understand both of these phenomena.
Perspectives
This article is a response to Ruth Kempson's theory of Dynamic Syntax, which made the comparison between language and a particular sort of programming - what is called logic programming - much easier. And, similarly, Dale Miller's work on logic programming made the comparison much easier from the computer programming end of the comparison.
Graham White
Queen Mary, University of London
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Dynamic Syntax and Proof Theory, Theoretical Linguistics, January 2017, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/tl-2017-0011.
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