Edward Gibson: Human Language, Psycholinguistics, Syntax, Grammar & LLMs | Lex Fridman Podcast
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2024
- Edward Gibson is a psycholinguistics professor at MIT and heads the MIT Language Lab. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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TRANSCRIPT:
lexfridman.com/edward-gibson-...
EPISODE LINKS:
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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
1:13 - Human language
5:19 - Generalizations in language
11:06 - Dependency grammar
21:05 - Morphology
29:40 - Evolution of languages
33:00 - Noam Chomsky
1:17:06 - Thinking and language
1:30:36 - LLMs
1:43:35 - Center embedding
2:10:02 - Learning a new language
2:13:54 - Nature vs nurture
2:20:30 - Culture and language
2:34:58 - Universal language
2:39:21 - Language translation
2:42:36 - Animal communication
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Transcript: lexfridman.com/edward-gibson-transcript
0:00 - Introduction & sponsor mentions:
- Yahoo Finance: yahoofinance.com
- Listening: listening.com/lex and use code LEX to get one month free
- Policygenius: policygenius.com/lex
- Shopify: shopify.com/lex to get $1 per month trial
- Eight Sleep: eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings
1:13 - Human language
5:19 - Generalizations in language
11:06 - Dependency grammar
21:05 - Morphology
29:40 - Evolution of languages
33:00 - Noam Chomsky
1:17:06 - Thinking and language
1:30:36 - LLMs
1:43:35 - Center embedding
2:10:02 - Learning a new language
2:13:54 - Nature vs nurture
2:20:30 - Culture and language
2:34:58 - Universal language
2:39:21 - Language translation
2:42:36 - Animal communication
GOD BLESS YOU
Tabla Indian🇮🇳⁉️ instrumental crypto language incredible⁉️⁉️⁉️ who invented tabla language code Alien language ⁉️⁉️🇮🇳
I draw perfectly sideways automatically and I resolve P=NP with it - because I don't know what I'm drawing - it's an NP simulaiton - I think I'm drawing pseudorandom lines - try it and see if you get a perfectly sideways even styled transposed illustration you didn't know you could draw at all - not even in your regular drawing perspective. It's interesting. It involves mental rotation tasks - look that up in psych papers - men and even baby boys are allegedly the best at it - I'm the best at it.
Totally nerding out on Language. I loved it, Lex, thanks.
I can fix it! 🎬
I had a serious stroke in 2006. I spoke English, German, Spanish, and Japanese prior to that. Then, after the stroke I could barely speak English. My doctor, Jonathan Rosand ❤ at Mass General Hospital, told me you can get more back than you think if you only ask your brain to do it. I took his word and began the process of getting them back. I started with German. The footpath to my German became a super highway 6 years later on a 2 week trip to Germany. This encouraged me to go get my Spanish back. Two years of DuoLingo and a Trip to Peru, and BAM! Got that one back too. I have now been studying Japanese on DuoLingo for 1447 days and will go to Japan in November. I am thrilled to say that I now read Japanese better than when I lived there 30 years ago for 2 1/2 years! Never EVER underestimate the plasticity of the brain! It can overcome some serious stuff! This podcast underlines that point! ❤
Great story
hell yeah, this is an amazing story. I am glad you are doing well after your stroke and congratulations in recapitulating your polyglot abilities :)
Thanks man, gives me hope, Dad had a stroke about a year back and we thought we'd lost him. Slowly he's getting better, come a long way, good to know whats possible
Great story!
Man the study of language is underated imo
Isn't it wild how this happened. The old adage the Sandler has torn sandals. Tucker Carlson doesn't own a TV I just learned...lol
The language area in the brain is separate from that of thinking doesn’t mean language is not critical to thought, nor language development doesn’t contribute to thinking capabilities.
Say hwat hwat hway?
Say hwat hwat hway?
The bombshell of this episode is that neither of them have an inner monologue. And Lex doesn't think that's odd 😂
Ooh I haven't made it that far yet, that's interesting! I can't even wrap my head around what it would be like without it. Uncomfortably silent? Lol 😂😅
For real XD
Same
Agree 🤯
If a person does not have an internal monologue he thinks in images right?
I just smile from the excitement which with this guy talks about language, i'm not even intrested in languages
i just love listenting to someone you really can tell absolutely loves what hes talking about
I urge everyone to learn a language. As a German speaker, learning English opened up the entire world for me, Spanish helped me understand a whole continent, Japanese lets me understand so many media I enjoy... I can't get enough, it's so much fun, inexpensive and stays with you, no matter how hard life gets. Plus, the more rare the language you learn is, the bigger the smile once a person from that country realizes you took the time to learn it.
Agreed. I took 2 years of Latin in HS, 1 year of Portuguese, and 3 years of Spanish. It taught me etymology, syntax, and patience with people. It later helped me work with non verbal Portuguese and Spanish students with autism. Comes in handy and is a good conversation starter in school systems like where I work
How do you learn - what's your tool of choice?
@@chriss740 friends in your age, learning style, and what you'll be part of later .
This was sooo much more interesting than I had anticipated. Excellent guest
❤ I'm just 6 minutes into this conversation, but am already so excited that i wanted to comment immediately. I'm an English teacher and these are the things i obsess over. Thank you to both of you ❤❤
The kid who ate the one marshmallow
If every teacher i had in high school and college would have been half as passionate about the subject as Mr. Gibson is about language, school would have actually been fun. 😮
only a fool can ask for "passion" as an attribute, passion is something that has value only when you have previously achieved many other things such as integrity, discipline, experience, vision, clarity, etc. otherwise your passion is worth less than excrement
If all teachers had a based salary of 100K, passion would araise among them. ❤
I doubt your teenage self would have found drawing syntactical tree diagrams fun, or breaking words down into their morphological and phonological components. In fact, most students think grammar is boring and not that relevant to their lives, despite the passion of their teachers.
Public schools suck
Thank you, Lex and Professor Gibson. It is not often that an entire podcast episode speaks "my language."😊
The guests make me want to change my areas of study!
Life is too short and there is so little time to devote to goals and there are too many wonderful domains to dig into.
😩
My favorite part about watching lex is that he is so smart he is able to take what someone else is talking about, that is way over my head head, and dumb it down to something I feel like I sort of understand.
You are right and he also seems to ask the most interesting relevant g e r m a n e questions
I think the beauty of Lex is that he is willing to ask basic questions, and keep returning to them if he doesn't 'get it'. There were so many questions Lex asked that were exactly the questions I had, and I was so appreciative of him not letting go. Not really basic questions, but questions others might feel too embarrassed or intimidated to ask. That's why he's my favorite interviewer.
I loved linguistics so much in college that I ended up doing a whole extra major in it. It's great to see Lex finally discovering some of the fascinating and mind-blowing concepts in linguistics.
This podcast is a goldmine of insightful conversations! Each episode feels like diving into a pool of knowledge, with engaging hosts who know how to keep you hooked from start to finish. Highly recommend for anyone seeking thought-provoking content! ❤
Now, now. I like Lex, but let's not get overboard. He's great when he has a good guest, not so much when he has just another joker from the Rogan universe.
I just got off sam altman's vid and theres a brand new one. Talk about fortuitous timing. Keep up the grind Lex we're loving the content.
We?
Take an inner dialogue poll, Lex! Thanks for the language episode! I hoped there would be more digging into how language shapes the fundamental architecture of thought. Take nouns. Nouns refer to objects, for instance a ball. Think of a ball, is it solid? Is it static? Is it absolute? In your mind it probably is. Even if the ball is bouncing or spinning, itself is a ball as you know it. But in reality, the ball is a process. Electrons are humming within, light is reflecting from its surface, its elements are decaying. The ball is a process, a verb in reality, its more so a "balling" if you will. We need a way to refer to specific snapshots or states, so nouns are necessary. But its easy to see how language influences thought.
Oooo you’ve just blown my mind a bit!
From a psycholinguist listener, thanks for this, Lex!
My brain just exploded! KABOOOM... I have no words to describe how fascinating to learn how languages evolved into this tangled web of different dialects we use in our communication to bring meaning into this world with one another. Ed's a pretty cool dude!
As always, just a thank you. You always do it right, Lex. Elegance, intelligence, class, and a sprinkle of badazz. Cheers to you and your journey.
Another conversation only Lex could've pulled off. Enjoyed the enthusiasm of the conversation. The topic is quite interesting and thought provoking
Nerd feasting.
First Rogan has Gram & Dibble now Lex has Gibson!
What a week!
When I first saw the title I thought it would be a boring conversation. But after skipping it and then returning back to it I found it quite interesting. Perhaps because I can better understand it for it to be interesting (rather than something that is esoteric and unique but is too difficult to understand that I can’t get invested in).
Well done Lex and Ed! :)
I feel smarter every time I listen to a Lex Fridman podcast.
lexicon fridgeman
Amazing interview. Lex asks all the right questions. Dependency grammar is fascinating.
Thank you @lex for this opportunity to learn from the awesome Dr Gibson. This should be one of the top podcasts. Thank you both of you.
I've listened to a lot of Lex interviews, but this was one of the best! I had absolutely no idea what to expect, and can't begin to explain why this was such an enjoyable experience, but it was! I don't think I've ever heard Lex be so engaged with his subject. I listened to the full 3 hours twice in a row, and could listen to it again. And he didn't even touch on things like Google Translate, coping with deafness, and more. Please bring him back for another session! The idea that 'thought' is different from 'language' is very fascinating; I would love to hear a much more in-depth analysis of that.
The fact that he said "engineering perspective" that early in the show means they are destined to be best friends.
Was not expecting this to be so interesting. Kudos to both host (Lex has to be the best interviewer worldwide currently) and guest - always grateful for anything that pushes my known horizons a little further out, and gives me new rabbit holes to jump into for a few weeks.
fascinating! I guess this episode made me realize how much I learn from a wide variety of subject matter from your podcasts
Thank you for doing what you do Lex!
*Words with venom. Words that bind. Words used like weapons to cloud my mind*
I’m a person. I’m a man. But no matter how I try, people just say hey…
Respect ✊✌
I'm a horsey, I like to play, why do these humans keep feeding me hay?
@@thereallablog feeding you hay? Their feeding us hey, Not hello, because in the mind me must knot hello, to understand the mask of the spelling be is competition.
Thanks for this conversation, Lex. I've always been fascinated by the development and use of languages.
In (old) Hampshire "Aught I?" And "Aughtn't I?" _Are_ both perfectly acceptable (formal/class dependent) forms (Winchester, etc.)
ol' Hampshire
@@maxwarboy3625 no, just; 'ampshire.
😜
Watching Lex get flustered over the internal monolog thing was great. I went through the same range of emotions when i first heard some people don't hear themselves think.
So they just pay attention to emotions then? My thoughts tend to create my emotions.
Are thoughts called inner monologue?
I too love a bunch of formal language theory, Lex. Good stuff, Edward!
Awesome guest ❤
Lex topics are interconnected for a man to get the real essence of general information enough for them to think and decide logically as real intelligent human beings..
I love this episode! My undergraduate degree was in linguistics, and while I didn't find a way to make a career out of it, I never stopped loving to learn about language. My favorite part about my coursework was that it was like solving word puzzles in a scientific or mathematical way. Thank you for the great listen!
Fascinating...for the first 30 minutes, then it was over my head. But that 30 minutes was worth the price of admission. Great interview with an amazing guest. Thanks.
Discussion on dependency length was particularly interesting, with possible connections to what LLMs are doing.
Phenomenal podcast Lex. Good work, Well done❤
This video is like a warm hug for the soul. It's a testament to the positive impact content creators can have on their audience.
I thought it was boring
I love episodes like these. I hope you continue to find people with interesting niche expertise like this.
Fascinating interview Lex. Another great job.
Love seeing “I Am That” in the background.
Me too 🥰
Fantastic guest. More like this please !
Your conversation was pleasant, thank you both.
Tons of thank you Lex. This is the most fascinating interview I ever watched.
Wouldn't have clicked on this one but autoplay put it on and it's surprisingly interesting.
Love this pod, love that you have such a wide variety scope.
lex you’re always giving us wisdom and great knowledge, i appreciate you deeply
Today I learned, center embedding makes sentences harder to understand.
I guess I knew that subconsciously, but it never occurred to me that I should avoid it if possible when writing text.
No, you do not have to avoid it. His point was that if it was not fixed by so called distance rules that it would be and he claims it is whereas Comsky claims the rules must be in the brain because a child can figure it out easily which would be very difficult to programmatically calculate. Chomsky is obviously correct because a child easily figure it out. So relax and speak the way you want to speak. Your brain "knows" what to do do, linguistics is interesting but not needed to learn how to speak correctly. Most people soon forget al the grammer and terminology they learned at school and a hell of a lot we learned was simply incorrect. Relax. You are quite capable of winging it.
@@reallynow6276 In most spoken contexts just winging it is just fine.
But in writing, there's plenty of room to "craft" text, not only to make it easier to understand, but to make sure it's precise and it's conveying the intended intended message.
You can also tailor the text to the intended audience and make sure the text is not "too dense".
So, absolutely you can use your conscious mind to make better text.
Even in speech, there's plenty of room to practice being a good communicator. For example, don't speak too fast, don't use a ton of jargon to a layman, but do with an expert. Double check not only that the receiver received the message, but also that they have the appropriate context to interpret it. Try to err on the side of being explicit and unambiguous.
So, one of the advices in being a better communicator is the advice to make sure to not use center embedding if it will hurt comprehensibility.
@@reallynow6276lmao, your answer is the perfect example of something that is hard to understand because of long distance and center embedding :D
This illustrates why center embedding is hard to process: we can say "The rat ate the malt"--no problem. We can add a clause inside and get "The rat the cat killed ate the malt" and understand it again without a problem. However, further center-embedding is where our brains give up: "The rat the cat the dog chased killed ate the malt."
@@reallynow6276 For clarity of expression, you should avoid too much center-embedding as my example above illustrates. And the question raised did not have to do with learning how to speak correctly; it was exploring the nature of the language ability and why certain constraints on possible or preferred constructions exist.
This is my favorite podcast that you have done. It was so interesting and lively.
I have an inner voice but it's not like I'm hearing someone talking to me. It's me talking in my thoughts, without using my tongue and air. This is something that any person in the world does, including you Edward Gibson.
Fascinating conversation on linguistics Thanks!
Really enjoyed conversation, really fascinating
This is going to be amazing.
If anyone likes fiction novels with very decadent language, pick up Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It’s like your eyes are eating dessert.
Back to my favorite kind of Lex. High-grade intellectual enjoyment.
I love how lex refers to himself as a “layman” while clearly having a better grasp on most topics than anyone else that would give themselves that moniker.
Amazing Guest!!! Amazing Topic!!! I Love Languages!!! I Only Speak 7...
Spain has a huge tradition on grammar. We study those trees in secondary school for years
Fascinating conversation!
Fascinating subject! "The difference between humans and chimpanzees is our sophisticated language." - Jane Goodall. Perhaps, when forms and meanings work together, there's poetry. Thank you both for this great conversation and learning.
actually it is our intelligence on a much broader level, which encompasses language but also many other things - e.g. building and wielding powerful objects such as tools which help us to build, extract minerals and fight, transport infrastructure, sewage systems, our ability to use fire to cook and many other factors beyond solely sophisticated language. It's definitely a notable one though
Idaong. That second last sentence of yours an AI will never be able to understand. That is clearly a human speaking with insight in the human mind.
Mind-blowing!! Love you guys.
Lex Fridman’s comment section always make my day a little brighter
It is fun watching Lex not quite knowing what to do with this information. Very interesting talk. My mind is blown as well.
Thnx lex. I dreamed about the episode on linguistics
What’s up lex, love your content! Stay bad a**
great convo. I love lang research. very fun interview !
Absolutely fascinating
Love this Lex! I have been trying to relay this info as an activist for so many years
A linguistics activist?
As a Finn, I just waited how long it takes for them to mention our crazy language. (It was less than 30 minutes. Torille!) Learning english as a kid was a revelation about how different languages actually work. Yet people everywhere still speak the same stuff, no matter the language.
This is one of my niche interests. Thanks!
*I love the grounded reality of this channel!!!*
Retirement took a toll on my finances, but with my involvement in the digital market, $27,000 weekly returns has been life changing. AWESOME GOD❤️❤❤
Thanks to my co-worker (Alex) who suggested Ms Maria Luisa Abrams.
She's a licensed broker in the states 🇺🇸
Oh please, how can someone get to speak with Maria Luisa Abrams!!?
Great to see you guys talking about her, she changed the game for me.
May God bless Ms Maria Luisa Abrams services,she have changed thousands of lives globally. Blessed❤
Lex- “Who does he think he is?” Edward- “Are you thinking out-loud about me?” Lex- “No, I was talking about myself in third person.”
If you think "The boy who the cat who the dog chased scratched ran away" is difficult, you should try reading Proust. That's child's play next to it.
Hey Lex, I've been enjoying your conversations on your podcast! I think it would be fascinating to see you chat with Two Minute Papers. His insights into research and new papers would mesh well with your discussions.
Fascinating. I highly recommend reading the linguist Robert Bringhurst and particularly his Language Poem.
Perfect chanel , Love you Lex. ❤
great episode :)
The part of this video where the topic of thoughts not being done or composed in the form of language, led me to think of how, Jung, imbedded in me the idea that thoughts communicate or present themselves in/as symbols. If that’s true, then I suppose we translate the symbol into language in order to simplify, asset and assign meaning.
I love this episode.
Just listen to 90% of people under 30. Most of the language used is on a broken, low level, underdeveloped scale now. Its almost as if it is devolved into something more crude than anything spoken/written in any other time. Songs, poetry, speeches, debates, are all pretty elementary in today's culture. I hope it becomes trendy again to learn a wide range vocabulary.
Great interview. Thank you
Yes. I refer to it as “text to talk”
Yes. There is a strong emphasis on concision. People want easy answers and summeries. It drives me crazy when people say you expand too much but do not actually focus on the line of argument and then insist on a summery as though that would clarify the content. There is no shortcut to knowledge, is what I want to say then, but I let it go because it wil go nowhere. We lost the book, we lost interest.
I love a bit of syntax; a bit of syntax I do love.
Thank you 🐓
This was a great an interview. I was surprised by both how much he knows and how much he doesn’t know.
This was fascinating! Does anyone have any recommendations for podcasts on the topics of language, etymology, linguistics...etc?
check out EtymologyNerd, hes on CZcams too, he has some very interesting shorts on language
💫One of my favourite words..
Elaborate.
It sounds nice.💫
Always a good day!
Thank you for this fascinating conversation. Now I want to read Dr. Gibson’s new book! As an ESL teacher & Reading teacher (teens) I find the concept of languages to be complex & endlessly interesting. It’s complex on many levels, such as academic English which at the high school level & beyond is highly content specific. The language of biology is very different from the language of history. If a student does not understand content specific academic vocabulary they won’t understand anything. Reading likewise is a complex process & in an academic setting often requires complex thinking skills such as making inferences and analyzing conflicting information. Language translations are a relatively simple task & are done well by programs, etc. but complex thought processes are required to truly learn, analyze and question & that may be exclusively a human ability; hence, AI needs humans to "train" it (data). Words are also Energy and carry the Energy of the intentions behind them.
Seems like Dan Everett would be a great follow up! Awesome episode!
Excellent!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHMAZING!!!! Thanks guys!!!! 🤯
It would be interesting to have John McWhorter on as a follow up to this.
Oh my goodness, YES! Absolutely love him!
Bro I have just started learning Japanese as a kind of exploration... and curiosity. And connecting this topics in my head how different things shape each other. Interesting
LOL to Edward saying NLP didn't seem too interesting!!! I love this episode. I took a linguistics class in college. It was challenging but fun! I loved learning more about the way human beings process language. Thank you :)
Regarding language learning, let's take my son as an example. He's originally Ukrainian but was born and lives in Italy. At 14, he fluently speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and Italian, while his English proficiency is currently at A2 level. He's currently attending Cambridge courses to reach B1 level. He frequently watches CZcams videos in English, which helps him understand the language better. What's amusing is that we never formally taught him how to read and write in Ukrainian and Russian. One day, when he was 6 years old, he spontaneously asked us about all the letters on the keyboard. That's all now he can read in Russian and Ukrainian, albeit slowly compared to Italian and English. This illustrates that if you truly desire something, you'll achieve it, but if you're only doing it out of obligation, it will likely become tedious.
I had no idea that some people don't have an "inner voice". My understanding of how my "inner voice" functions is that it is a process associated with the Supramarginal Gyrus, Angular Gyrus, and Broca's area where concepts are assembled into language prior to being expressed verbally. It often feels like /speaking/ internally more than it feels like /hearing/ thoughts internally. I don't find it to be distracting because it is something done intentionally and so it isn't intrusive. Musicians for example might think about how they want a piece of music to be heard and will be able to percieve internally what they want it to sound like before attempting to perform the reproduction of the musical concept; Whereas hearing an "inner voice" feels more like trying to remember what a piece of music sounds like, or remembering what someone said and how it sounded. There is probably cognitive overhead with having that sort of process adaptation but it is very useful for thinking about things and sythesizing concepts solo. I imagine that most comedians posess a fairly active inner voice; being able to consider their own stream of consciousness, the audience's experience, and comedic timing.
"One of the ways to reincarnate is to tell your story". - Spalding Gray