The title seems very misleading: It seems to create false and real etymologies for both neologisms and commonly used words.
In other words, a false etymology constructor, not an etymology deconstructor :)
A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
51–57 of 57 posts
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I won’t comment on the second reason, since that seems like something a linguist should address, but I don’t really buy the first and last reasons: 1. Doesn’t seem relevant, as we’re discussing making up a word in conversation and not putting it into dictionaries. 3. Especially in this globalised world, English loanwords are everywhere. No one bats an eye at it and plenty of languages distort those words to fit their…
1. Well I think perhaps then we could reverse it and just see the lack of a regulatory body as a symptom of a culture that cares less about following strict linguistic rules. Compared to French, which also has a ton of slang and experimentation, but notably the power structures underlying the language care enough about maintaining a standard. 3. Loanwords are everywhere but I think they are easier to incorporate into…
I still disagree but I think this would be too hard to discuss over asynchronous text. You have some arguments I’d like to explore and spend some back and forth trying to understand your point and explaining mine better, but unfortunately have stuff to still do today.
Still, I want to thank you for the polite and reasoned replies. I wish we were having this conversation in person, I’m confident it would’ve been interesting.
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny; I'm looking at your examples and coming to the opposite conclusion. I feel like it is very good because it provides explanations for unusual or novel words that are similar to what a human might conclude.
Etymology is a science. This is random guesswork, and it's not even very precise (deriving refuggle from refugee is definitely objectively wrong). Maybe I'm coloured by having spent half a decade of my life on a linguistics degree, though.
Would you expect that it would point out that "refuggle" is not a word with any documented usage rather than drawing a strenuous connection to a slightly similar word?
I find the connections it draws amusing. Since I'm not the inventor of the word "refuggle," I can't say that I know its etymology or how it relates to "refugee." But I guess this is one weakness of LLMs: they're bad at admitting they don't have an answer.
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can think of three reasons: 1. English doesn’t really have an official regulation body, like French does. 2. The lack of cases and complex grammar. Any language with a case system is going to have more complexity when it comes to adding new words, because otherwise you end up with awkward looking constructions. 3. English itself is something of a hybrid between Latin and Germanic languages, which to my knowledge gi…
I won’t comment on the second reason, since that seems like something a linguist should address, but I don’t really buy the first and last reasons: 1. Doesn’t seem relevant, as we’re discussing making up a word in conversation and not putting it into dictionaries. 3. Especially in this globalised world, English loanwords are everywhere. No one bats an eye at it and plenty of languages distort those words to fit their…
Loanwords are a different thing, IMHO - even those where some language would take the root and localize the verbing part. In loanwords, you're still actually lending a "real" word from English, one you'd find in an English dictionary. That's a distinct thing from ad-hoc inventing new words that are not in the dictionary and not intended to end up in one - words meant to exist for the duration of a conversation or some engagement, or within the scope of some work.
It is my impression that introducing such ad-hoc words in English is something people wouldn't bat an eye on, while in other languages/cultures I'm familiar with, it'd be something Serious that you probably shouldn't do unless absolutely necessary.
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#55It actually knows about "Lisa the Iconoclast". Cool.
I was hoping it wouldn't. It does seem to give a reasonable etymology for "embiggen", though.
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Etymology is a science. This is random guesswork, and it's not even very precise (deriving refuggle from refugee is definitely objectively wrong). Maybe I'm coloured by having spent half a decade of my life on a linguistics degree, though.
Would you expect that it would point out that "refuggle" is not a word with any documented usage rather than drawing a strenuous connection to a slightly similar word? I find the connections it draws amusing. Since I'm not the inventor of the word "refuggle," I can't say that I know its etymology or how it relates to "refugee." But I guess this is one weakness of LLMs: they're bad at admitting they don't have an answ…
We know alot about how English has evolved. Word forms develop along certain paths, sound changes follow laws that linguists have described, and the "fuuuug" in refugee does not become "fugg".
Etymology is probably the subfield of the humanities that provides the closest thing we get to testable hypotheses and laws. This is just mashing shit together.
It also seems to have a tendency to just mash semantics together. As though having something resembling "pig" and something resembling "full" means "full AND piggish". But that's not how plain juxtaposition works in Germanic: it's specification, not conjunction. So "pigful" would mean a type of full, full of pigs. (This is language specific, by the way; as I recall in Vietnamese "mother-father" is the normal word for parents - but in Danish it means grandfather, your mother's father.)
I'm sure I could get WhateverGPT to hallucinate something that looks like those drawings chemists make of molecules to most laypeople. That would be about as interesting as this is.
Re: A AI etymology deconstructor – can guess fake words
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I won’t comment on the second reason, since that seems like something a linguist should address, but I don’t really buy the first and last reasons: 1. Doesn’t seem relevant, as we’re discussing making up a word in conversation and not putting it into dictionaries. 3. Especially in this globalised world, English loanwords are everywhere. No one bats an eye at it and plenty of languages distort those words to fit their…
1. Well I think perhaps then we could reverse it and just see the lack of a regulatory body as a symptom of a culture that cares less about following strict linguistic rules. Compared to French, which also has a ton of slang and experimentation, but notably the power structures underlying the language care enough about maintaining a standard. 3. Loanwords are everywhere but I think they are easier to incorporate into…
It's not more complicated if you know the language.
Language is a tool. People will use their language for what they need it for. If there isn't a word they'll make one up or steal it. This is absolutely universal. I know you can dig up any number of texts that say English is special, but they're all wrong.
"Languages differ not in what they can express, but in what they must express" as Roman Jakobson phrased it. (The "must express" refers to grammar - in some languages you need a subject, or to know the time something happened, or in which direction[0] it happened. Other languages don't care, but you can add that information if you need it.)
[0] E.g. Mam, spoken in Guatemala, marks all verbs for direction, even if they're abstract, then you add one based on convention or metaphor or maybe taste.