three

three

exquisite corpse: form and content

Folding chairs

Parts of speech

Nouns (from latin nomen, “name”) A word for a person, place, thing, or action, or a class of person, place,

thing, or action Examples: “examples”, “noun”, “George”, “Evanston”, “running”,

“terrorist” Adjectives

A word that modifies a noun Examples: “green”, “heavy”, “democratic”

Determiners (or “articles”) Distinguish between a general versus a specific use of a noun Examples: “a”, “the”, “some”, “which”

Verbs Words that express actions, changes, or states of being Examples: “go”, “went”, “is”, “love”, “has loved”

Exquisite corpse

“Game of folded paper that consists in having a sentence or a drawing composed by several persons, each ignorant of the proceeding collaboration” 1939 Abridged Dictionary of Surrealism (as copied off the wall at the Art Institute of Chicago)

A technique used by the early surrealists for creating unexpected combinations

Produces sentences that are grammatically correct But semantically challeng(ing/ed)

One of the first uses of chance operations in composition

“the exquisite/corpse/will drink/the new/wine”

Exquisite corpse drawings

Source: http://anexquisitecorpse.net/explanation.shtml

a more recent example

Class sentences

The blue time bends the blue chocolate A pretty cardboard predicates the suicidal

sheep The dirty muck becomes an elegant

nugget The sonorous Norris University Center

laments a collapsed sun

Syntax

Fancy word for “grammar” Describes how a language is composed of phrases

NounPhrase = determiner adjective noun the exquisite corpse a pickled monsoon

VerbPhrase = verb NounPhrase eats a pickled monsoon

Sentence = NounPhrase VerbPhrase the exquisite corpse eats a pickled monsoon

Can have different alternatives for a type of phrase NounPhrase = noun | determiner noun | adjective noun

| determiner adjective noun The “|” character here means “or else” an exquisite corpse bought the president

Phrase structure of a sentence

Linguists notate phrase structure by bracketing: [sentence [NounPhrase the exquisite corpse] [VerbPhrase

[verbwill drink] [NounPhrase the new wine]]]

Or more readably … [sentence [NounPhrase the exquisite corpse]

[VerbPhrase [verbwill drink] [NounPhrase the new wine]]]

Nested grammar

Some verbs are followed by entire sentences VerbPhrase = verb | verb NounPhrase

| verb Sentence [Sentence [NounPhrase We]

[VerbPhrase proclaim [Sentence [NounPhrase the exquisite corpse] [VerbPhrase [verb will drink] [NounPhrase the new wine]]]]]

This is called “nesting” or “recursion”

Referring expressions in English

Phrases that refer to an object or objects “Robin” “James” “The TAs of this class” “the grad students of Ian” “the people in 324” “France” “capitalism” “The sum of 2 and 3” “The mother of the TA of this class”

We’ll focus on two kinds Names (“Robin”, “Rob”, “France”, “capitalism”) Functional expressions (the X of Y)

A deeply nested referring expression

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of [the mother of [the TA of [this class]]]]]]]]

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of [the mother of [the TA of [this class]]]]]]]]

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of [the mother of [the TA of [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of [the mother of [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of [the nation of The United States [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of [the father of George Washington [the nation of The United States [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of [the grandfather of George’s grandpa [the father of George Washington [the nation of The United States [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of [the mother of George’s great grandma [the grandfather of George’s grandpa [the father of George Washington [the nation of The United States [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Please forgive the sexist expression “father of the nation”

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[the mother of George’s great great grandma

[the mother of George’s great grandma [the grandfather of George’s grandpa [the father of George Washington [the nation of The United States [the mother of Robin’s mom [the TA of Robin [this class]]]]]]]] cs 395

Meaning follows form

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

TA mother nation fathergrand-father

mother motherCS-380

Robin’smom

Robin’sgmom USA

Washington Washington’sgdad

W’s GD’smom

W’s GD’sgmom

What have we learned?

Media have Structure/form/syntax Meaning/content/semantics The two are interdependent, but semi-autonomous

Media are generativeTheir grammars can be filled in in an infinite number of ways

People are incredibly good at extracting meaning, even from “meaningless” media

Chance operations can produce interesting juxtapositions Specify a structure Fill in positions randomly (There are other ways of doing chance operations too…)

Syntax of meta

We’ll be using a programming language called meta It has a very simple syntax (we’ll modify this later):

Expression = word | number | “[“ Expressions … “]”

Phrases are explicitly grouped using brackets Examples

[box 10 10] [point 100 100] [line [point 100 100] [point 20 20]]

We’ll talk about semantics next …

Our example in Meta

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[mother-of [mother-of [grandfather-of [father-of [nation-of [mother-of [TA-of cs-380]]]]]]]

TA mother nation fathergrand-father

mother motherCAT-380

Robin’smom

Robin’sgmom USA

Washington Washington’sgdad

W’s GD’smom

W’s GD’sgmom

I don’t expect you to understand this yet

Or alternatively…

“The mother of the mother of the grandfather of the father of the nation of the mother of the TA of this class”

[with washington = [father-of [nation-of [mother-of [TA-of cs-380]]]] [mother-of [mother-of [grandfather-of washington]]]

TA mother nation fathergrand-father

mother motherCAT-380

Robin’smom

Robin’sgmom USA

Washington Washington’sgdad

W’s GD’smom

W’s GD’sgmom