Structural Complexity in Fairy Tales

The Sfudy Of Man, 30%. I {€§?2}; $28-$53; gnxm‘ ENS? C0 Structural Cospiexity is Fairy isles George P. Lakof£* PREFACE This is an inquiry into the structure of discourse through the investigation of an interesting subset of discourses ~~ Russian Fairy Tales. I assume that the study of discourse is ultimately to be part of a formalized theory of linguistic structure. I“sha11 endeavor to show that any adequate theory of the structure of fairy tales must share many formal properties with the transformational linguistic theory that has so far been prooosed by Noam Chomsky and his cow workers. Such a result would be of psychological interest, for it would indicate that an adequate model for the bearer and speaker of the sentences of a language could also be used to describe§ at least in part, the human ability to produce and understand discoursesa This might ultimately Show that the human mind is an extremely efficient device which uses essentially the same mechanism for constructing and undersiasding complicatefi discourses as it uses for constructing and understanding iadivieual seetencesg %This paper was sriteee is i§§e while my zemoze escestozg George P? Lakoffr was s graduate siudeet at Eeeiaaa Eniversityr 1 tree: that that eponymoss wozthy would tske it as so eisservice test I as angels to find myself is total agreement sow with shat he wrote then; though there is e certsie selsacholy pleasurefi E own, in rewreeeisg even those eassages where we most iififerr ~=~§eorge Laksff, finiversity of California? Eeskeleso