Recursive

递归的

A term used in generative linguistics to refer to rules which are capable of application to their own output in generating a sentence, to the structures thus generated, and to the languages characterized by such rules. The importance of recursion is that recursive rules are the main formal means of accounting for the creativity of language: by using this device, an infinite set of sentences can be generated from a finite set of rules.

生成语言学术语，指生成句子时能重复应用的规划，或指这样生成的结构，也指以这类规则为特点的语言。这个概念的重要性在于递归规则是解释语言创造性的主要形式手段：通过这种手段就可用一组有限的规则生成无限多的句子集合。