No subject

[A. Katz]

1. ON COMPTENCE/PERFORMANCE

Sergio Meira and Carl Alphonce are correct in noting that limits on
sentence length due to processing difficulty are often ascribed to
performance errors. I do not find this a satisfactory solution for the
following reason:

Generativists make a big fuss over the essentially and uniquely
`human' language instinct and capacity. Carl Alphonse echoes this
sentiment when he says:

>A competence theory is about
>our idealized capacity for language, while a performance theory can be
>viewed as constraints of a non-grammatical nature which limit what we
>are able to produce and comprehend.

OUR idealized capacity?  But what is described is an abstract
construct of language, totally divorced from the limitations of human
potential. `Competence theory' when used in this way is about the
flexibility built into any abstract code of information, (DNA code,
computer code, etc.) regardless of whether humans have any special
inborn capacity for decoding it. It's about the universal rules of
information theory, not about a human language instinct.

As such, the `competence/performance' dichotomy is a misnomer, and
not a trivial one.

If I mispeak and accidentally utter a sentence where the verb does
not agree with the subject, although on a good day I have no
difficulty with that task, then this a performance error. But if I am
unable to comprehend a sentence in my native language due to its
complexity, even on the best of days -- and if all humans consistently
manifest the same disability -- that's a competence problem, by any
normal definition of competence.

If we buy into that other, specialized meaning of competence, we give
up the question of innateness before we've even begun.

2. WHY DOES IT MATTER HOW LONG A SENTENCE CAN BE?

Douglas S. Oliver wrote:

"I would like to ask how
we might bring cognitive, biological, social, cultural, etc.
concerns into the discussion, using real discourse examples."

The application of the upper bound on unit length (whether you view a
sentence as a logical proposition or use prosodic evidence of sentence
boundaries), is important to grammaticalization theory because the
drive to maintain optimal length is one of the factors responsible for
the reduction and fusion of formerly independent elements into new
grammmatical patterns.

Ultimately this limitation on the human capacity to process shapes
acceptable grammatical configurations -- and patterns of grammatical
change.

Show me any instance of grammaticalization -- and chances are that
limits on length had something to do with it.

That's why I'm looking for both theoretical and experimental work on
the subject of the upper bound on sentence length.

                         --Aya Katz

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Dr. Aya Katz, 3918 Oak, Brookfield, Illinois 60513-2019 (708) 387-7596
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