back and forth

[Dick Hudson]

I think David Pesetstky is right. So-called `formalists' have been extremely
enthusiastic recently about trying to predict syntactic form from semantic
function. An even clearer example of this, which he doesn't mention, is in
the area of `argument structure' (or, alternatively, `theta roles' or some
other kind of semi-semantic structure) as a predictor of syntactic roles
(subject, object, etc). A lot of `formalists' have suggested an extremely
close connection between the two. I think Chomsky has rejected total
predictability (and I think I'd agree with him), but I also think that, like
many of us on this list, he thinks it's a good idea to look for tight
correlations between semantic `function' and syntactic `form'. So what's the
argument about?

At 22:11 10/01/97 -0500, you wrote:
>At 12:24 PM -0800 1/10/97, Tom Givon wrote:
>
>
>> Seems to me I hear another argument between the partly deaf. Everybody
>> concede that a correlation exists between grammatical structures and
>> semantic and/or pragmatic functions. But two extremist groups seem to
>> draw rather stark conclusions from the fact that the correlation is
>> less-than-fully-perfect. The "autonomy" people seem to reason:
>>      "If less than 100% perfect correlation,
>>       therefore no correlation (i.e. 'liberated' structure)"
>
>Do "autonomy people" really reason like this?  I don't think so.  In fact,
>I think it's just the opposite.
>
>Isn't most of the research by "autonomy people" actually devoted to the
>hunch that there is a nearly *perfect* 100% correlation between grammatical
>structure and semantic/pragmatic function -- and that "less than 100%"
>correlations are actually 100% correlations obscured by other factors?
>
>-       What, after all, is the functional category boom about, if not a
>(possibly overenthusiastic) attempt to investigate a 100% correlation
>hypothesis for properties like tense, agreement, topic, focus, and so on?
>
>-       What was the motivation for the hypothesis of "covert movement" (LF
>movement), if not the hunch that the correlation between grammatical and
>semantic/pragmatic structure is tighter than it appears?
>
>-       Why all the effort expended on the unaccusative hypothesis, the
>Universal Alignment Hypothesis, and Baker's UTAH, if not in service of the
>hypothesis that non-correlations between semantic function and grammatical
>form are only superficial?
>
>I think one might make the case that formalist "autonomy people" are among
>the most faithful functionalists.
>
>What divides linguists in this debate is not, I suspect, their faith in
>robust form-function correlations, but rather their hunches about the
>repertoire of factors that *obscure* these correlations.  That's where many
>of us really do disagree with each other.
>
>-David Pesetsky
>
>
>*************************************************************************
>Prof. David Pesetsky, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy
>20D-219 MIT,  Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
>(617) 253-0957 office           (617) 253-5017 fax
>http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/pesetsky.html
>
>
Richard (=Dick) Hudson
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
work phone: +171 419 3152; work fax: +171 383 4108
email: dick at ling.ucl.ac.uk
web-sites:
  home page = http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
  unpublished papers available by ftp = ....uk/home/dick/papers.htm