How many possible sentences in the English language

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Magical Realist, Aug 21, 2013.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Real eyes, metaphor, refers to honest and alert perception grounded in accurate and comprehensive understanding.

    "Realize" is not quite the same as "recognize", carrying the implication of making fully real rather than merely registering a completely established reality - here, the meaning would be that something produced by self-delusion or carefully avoided admission, not coherently intended as deception of others, presented in a confused context of possibility and implication, is by sober and grounded perception established in reality as nevertheless a falsehood whose expression is not honestly founded and whose role is to deceive.

    One of the problems we have counting English sentences is that the same words in the same order do not necessarily express the same meaning in all situations.

    But clearly, there is no upper bound on the typographic length of a written English sentence - one can always add a word. And if Gertrude Stein is correct, and we have no reason to doubt her, then repetition does not create redundancy in meaning - in which case there is no upper bound on the length of expression of new meaning, no length beyond which the meaning does not change either.
     
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