form, function, data, description

[Alan Dench]

I disagree with a number of the recent postings about the value of
formal
work, the nature and use of data, and from my heart with the sharp
divide that
some seem to want to draw between functionalist and formalist.

1. Matthew Dryer is unaware of "any instance in which the descriptions
provided by
formal linguists have been of value", and that typologists will find
descriptions of
form in descriptive grammars rather than in anything provided by
formalists.

Having written a few grammars, I know how little one should trust these,
but that is a different issue. There *are* descriptive grammars informed
by formal
theory and these are very useful to the typologist. To cite a well known
example,
though the theory is quite dated, Dixon's grammar of Dyirbal is largely
based in the then current generative phonology/transformational grammar
framework. I suspect that
it was not just the facts of the language that generated such interest
in this grammar -- an interest that has persisted -- but Dixon's
explicit use of the formal tools then at hand.
In discovering where these tools worked and where they didn't we learnt
a lot about
this language and looked at quite a few others in a different way.

Generally, I would agree with Dryer's statements that functionalists do
not depend on
formalists for their explananda. But I have to say that many descriptive
grammarians,
writing the descriptions on which a range of research enterprises
(including functionalist ones) are based, depend very much on formalist
linguistics for many of their *questions*.

How important was it to describe the properties of reflexive pronouns
before the advent of binding theory? Descriptions of argument structure
and case relations, of Equi etc. are fairly standard in grammars these
days. It hasn't always been like this.

2. John Myhill asks that David Pesetsky learn enough Japanese to see for
himself, though John assures us that the issue is not about knowing or
not knowing Japanese.
One wonders, given the obvious complexity of jibun (as far as I can
glean from the discussion) just how much Japanese one would need to
learn. At what point in their acquisition do second language learners
provide intuitions as reliable as those of native speakers? At what
point can a linguist learning a language trust his or her own
intuitions? Can only native speaker linguists write 'correct'
descriptions?

3. Please don't ask, as a requirement, for descriptive linguists to
learn the languages they write descriptions of. The material available
for secondary description/analysis would dry up pretty quickly. And
please don't write off those descriptions/grammars that have been
written by linguists who didn't 'know' the languages as necessarily
incomplete. Please take into consideration that any description is
limited -- by the nature of data, by the knowledge of the informants, by
the interests and expertise of the describer, etc. etc. Especially,
please don't expect that grammatical descriptions of any kind, whether
written by 'formalists', 'functionalists' or just plain eclectics say
all there is to say about a phenomenon, or more importantly ask the only
questions worth asking.

4. Incidentally, I wonder how many term papers have been prompted by the
discussion of jibun.

Alan Dench