form versus meaning

[Daniel L. Everett]

On Sat, 11 Jan 1997, Elizabeth Bates wrote:

> In response to Edith Moravcsik's message, I think there is one more
> hidden assumption: that items either are, or are not, members of a
> syntactic class, and if they are members, they are members to the
> same degree.  This is a classic approach to category membership, but
> its psychological validity is highly questionable, after more than
> two decades of research on prototypicality effects, fuzzy boundaries,
> ad hoc categories, context-dependent categorizations, and so on.

The concern here is misplaced. The fact that some words, pointed out long
ago by Ross, can behave as nouns or verbs or even more or less 'nouny' or
'verby' is neither something that formal linguists are unaware of or that
they account for via performance. The question is whether their behavior
in specific constructions can be accounted for by discrete, explicit
constraints. The answer is, yes. No appeal to performance is needed.

>
> And while we are at it, I am puzzled by the suggestion that we should
> describe language "first" before any investigation of its biology can
> be carried out.

Would you want to theorize on the evolution of the hand before you
understood how hands work? This is a bizarre statement, Liz.

 Should physics be complete before we attempt chemistry?

No, and why do you ask? Oh, I know, you believe that real science must
reduce, chemistry to physics, biology to chemistry to physics, etc. That
is an empirical hypothesis, not a self-evident fact as seems to be so
commonly believed in San Diego.

>Why does linguistic description (field linguistics
> or self-induced grammaticality judgments) have priority over any other
> approach to the study of language?

Because core linguistics is after understanding of the subject matter -
other approaches assume it (and if they neither understand it nor assume
it, they are pointless).

> Is psycholinguistics a secondary science?

It is certainly derivative and not a primary field of inquiry. This is
why it has linguistics built into it - it can only work to the degree
that it understands language, at least in most cases I have looked at
(processing, acquisition, reading theory, and discourse).

> Should research on aphasia come to a halt until we know
> exactly what it is that the aphasic patient has lost?

The issue is not knowing what has been lost so much as being able to tell
eventually what has been lost. Without a clear understanding of
morphosyntax and phonology, yes, it would be premature to say much about
aphasia. But we do know enough about language/grammar for aphasia research
to take place and for mutual growth in both fields to take place.

> It seems to
> me that we need all the constraints that we can get, and that all
> levels of inquiry into the nature of language are valid and
> mutually informative.  The key is to be sure we know which level
> we are working on.

You cannot know a level by fiat in science, only by having its
constraints, structures, and units worked out. WIthout that, you will not
know which level you are on. That said, I agree with you.

> For example, I believe that claims about innateness > are biological
claims, that require biological evidence.  Proof that > a given structure
is (or is not) universal may be quite interesting and > useful to someone
who is investigating the biological underpinnings > of human language
abilities (genetic, or neural), but proofs of > universality do not
constitute ipso facto evidence for the innateness > of some
domain-specific linguistic structure, because that > structure may be the
inevitable but indirect by-product of > some constraint (e.g.from
information-processing) that is not, > in itself, linguistic (e.g. as Matt
Dryer points out, some kind > of memory constraint).  To untangle such
problems, many different > kinds of evidence will be required, and none of
them should be > granted priority over the others.  -liz bates

But you are already at the biological level. At that level, yes, all we
know about biology and language should be used. But prior to that level
(conceptually, not chronologically) we need to understand langauge/grammar
first (remember, Chomskian linguistics does not study language, it studies
grammar).

-- DLE