Grammar with a "G"

Lise Menn lmenn at PSYCH.COLORADO.EDU
Tue Mar 16 22:04:57 UTC 1999


Steve Straight does us a service by reminding us that various language
performances
(speaking, hearing, judging grammaticality, judging whether something is a
word) are neurolinguistically distinct; therefore a theory of grammar that
is supposed to capture the individual's knowledge of language will be
inadequate if it abstracts a single grammar that is uniform across types
of use (comprehension outstrips production at all levels of language
development; many of us use constructions that we would label
ungrammatical; huge discrepancies across abilities within an individual
can be observed in aphasia, etc.).  However, the diversity of 'grammar(s)'
in the brain does not mean that the different aspects of grammatical
knowledge are totally disconnected. We do learn from hearing;  we pick up
styles and words from those around us, not to mention from reading -
aren't you occasionally appalled to realize that you are 'talking like a
book'?  Priming (see Kay Bock's work) must account for how some word or
construction we have just heard turns up in our conversations in places
where it's not quite semantically what we really intended to say; and our
sense of grammaticality changes too, though more slowly (haven't we all
decreased in our *! reactions to English pronoun case violations as the
case marking system becomes more surface-controlled?)
        Whether G has lost its usefulness as an abstraction, I would
argue, depends on the level of detail at which one is working; if you are
describing an underdocumented language, it would be most unreasonable to
demand a separate account of what people 'know' in each of our currently
available ways of assessing knowledge, but if you are modeling brain
damage or language acquisition, then it is essential to attempt just that.
But in doing so, the intense cross-talk and interaction between the
different types of grammatical knowledge is a baby not to be discarded
with the bathwater.
        Lise Menn

Lise Menn
Professor and Chair
Linguistics Department - Box 295
University of Colorado
Boulder CO 80309-0295
303-492-8042; fax 303-492-4416

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