1
2
3
4 import string
5
6 """CHOMSKY is an aid to writing linguistic papers in the style
7 of the great master. It is based on selected phrases taken
8 from actual books and articles written by Noam Chomsky.
9 Upon request, it assembles the phrases in the elegant
10 stylistic patterns that Chomsky is noted for.
11 To generate n sentences of linguistic wisdom, type
12 (CHOMSKY n) -- for example
13 (CHOMSKY 5) generates half a screen of linguistic truth."""
14
15 leadins = """To characterize a linguistic level L,
16 On the other hand,
17 This suggests that
18 It appears that
19 Furthermore,
20 We will bring evidence in favor of the following thesis:
21 To provide a constituent structure for T(Z,K),
22 From C1, it follows that
23 For any transformation which is sufficiently diversified in application to be of any interest,
24 Analogously,
25 Clearly,
26 Note that
27 Of course,
28 Suppose, for instance, that
29 Thus
30 With this clarification,
31 Conversely,
32 We have already seen that
33 By combining adjunctions and certain deformations,
34 I suggested that these results would follow from the assumption that
35 If the position of the trace in (99c) were only relatively inaccessible to movement,
36 However, this assumption is not correct, since
37 Comparing these examples with their parasitic gap counterparts in (96) and (97), we see that
38 In the discussion of resumptive pronouns following (81),
39 So far,
40 Nevertheless,
41 For one thing,
42 Summarizing, then, we assume that
43 A consequence of the approach just outlined is that
44 Presumably,
45 On our assumptions,
46 It may be, then, that
47 It must be emphasized, once again, that
48 Let us continue to suppose that
49 Notice, incidentally, that """
50
51
52 subjects = """ the notion of level of grammaticalness
53 a case of semigrammaticalness of a different sort
54 most of the methodological work in modern linguistics
55 a subset of English sentences interesting on quite independent grounds
56 the natural general principle that will subsume this case
57 an important property of these three types of EC
58 any associated supporting element
59 the appearance of parasitic gaps in domains relatively inaccessible to ordinary extraction
60 the speaker-hearer's linguistic intuition
61 the descriptive power of the base component
62 the earlier discussion of deviance
63 this analysis of a formative as a pair of sets of features
64 this selectionally introduced contextual feature
65 a descriptively adequate grammar
66 the fundamental error of regarding functional notions as categorial
67 relational information
68 the systematic use of complex symbols
69 the theory of syntactic features developed earlier"""
70
71
72 verbs = """can be defined in such a way as to impose
73 delimits
74 suffices to account for
75 cannot be arbitrary in
76 is not subject to
77 does not readily tolerate
78 raises serious doubts about
79 is not quite equivalent to
80 does not affect the structure of
81 may remedy and, at the same time, eliminate
82 is not to be considered in determining
83 is to be regarded as
84 is unspecified with respect to
85 is, apparently, determined by
86 is necessary to impose an interpretation on
87 appears to correlate rather closely with
88 is rather different from"""
89
90
91 objects = """ problems of phonemic and morphological analysis.
92 a corpus of utterance tokens upon which conformity has been defined by the paired utterance test.
93 the traditional practice of grammarians.
94 the levels of acceptability from fairly high (e.g. (99a)) to virtual gibberish (e.g. (98d)).
95 a stipulation to place the constructions into these various categories.
96 a descriptive fact.
97 a parasitic gap construction.
98 the extended c-command discussed in connection with (34).
99 the ultimate standard that determines the accuracy of any proposed grammar.
100 the system of base rules exclusive of the lexicon.
101 irrelevant intervening contexts in selectional rules.
102 nondistinctness in the sense of distinctive feature theory.
103 a general convention regarding the forms of the grammar.
104 an abstract underlying order.
105 an important distinction in language use.
106 the requirement that branching is not tolerated within the dominance scope of a complex symbol.
107 the strong generative capacity of the theory."""
108
109
110 import textwrap, random
111 from itertools import chain, islice, izip
112
113 -def chomsky(times=1, line_length=72):
114 parts = []
115 for part in (leadins, subjects, verbs, objects):
116 phraselist = map(str.strip, part.splitlines())
117 random.shuffle(phraselist)
118 parts.append(phraselist)
119 output = chain(*islice(izip(*parts), 0, times))
120 return textwrap.fill(string.join(output), line_length)
121
122 print chomsky(5)
123