On nonobjects of syntactic study

Sydney Lamb lamb at RICE.EDU
Wed Jul 11 14:58:56 UTC 2001


Dear Dan and all -

It is good that you are trying to think this through with advice
from others before going into print.

> ...
> The basic thesis is that in a Chomskyan/Cartesian linguistics there is in
> principle no object of study. Alternatively, there is in-principle no
> way at getting at that object, however clear it may sound conceptually.

Right. Or you could say that there is an object of study -- the
ideal speaker-hearer, or the "internalized" grammar of same, or
the competence of same -- but all of these objects are
fictitious/imaginary/illusory.

> ...
> a grammar is  necessarily a Cartesian construct based on assumptions about
> ...

Yes, you could say 'Cartesian construct' as a euphemism for
fiction/illusion.

> ...
>   How do we recognize which phenomena are grammar-only in this
>  sense? We do not. We have not. We will not. We cannot.
> ...

I have trouble with the idea of 'grammar-only'. Why is it
necessary to isolate smthg from all else in order to recognize
it or study it? In the real world, Nothing is isolated from
everything else. Everything is interconnected; but we can still
study things.

> ...
>  Therefore, there is not, nor could there be, an object of study for an
> Cartesian-Chomskyan research program.
>...

Well, sure. But it doesn't seem necessary to go through such an
involved argument to arrive at this conclusion. Isn't it obvious
that there is no such thing as an 'ideal speaker-hearer'? And
that being the case, the 'competence' of such a fiction is
equally illusory.

> ...  . What could syntacticians
> study, then, if not a Cartesian or mental grammar?
> That answer is easy: whatever we find useful to study. Ergo, the guiding
> principles for linguistic
>  theory are more likely to be found in Pragmatism (James, Peirce, Dewey, CI
> ...

"Whatever is useful to study" is all right, but there is another
way of looking at it: Beyond the usefulness we might have a
concern with reality. It is not the case that linguistics has to
treat fictitious/illusory objects. It is possible to do
linguistics while also being realistic. Instead of imagining an
'ideal speaker-hearer' we can observe the Typical
speaker-hearer, a real object. Our concern should be with the
linguistic system(s) of such (a) person(s). Moreover, we know
now, from 140 years of aphasiology, that that system is a real
physical system residing the the cerebral cortex of that person.
This does not mean that we have to become neuroscientists to do
linguistics, for many of the ordinary time-honored methods of
linguistic investigation are quite applicable to figuring out
properties of that neurocognitive system. On the contrary, the
awareness of what it is that we are actually investigating helps
us to sort out which methods are likely to be useful and which
are not. For example, as we know that people are actually able
to use their linguistic systems for speaking and comprehending,
we can cast doubt on any structural formulation that has no
discernable means of being put into operation.

On the other hand aphasiology does provide useful clues that can
be appreciated without specialized knowledge of neurology, such
as the fact that our phonological systems include two
distinguishable (but of course interconnected and mutually
influencing) subsystems, one for phonological production, the
other for phonological recognition. The long-standing habit of
linguists of treating phonology just from the point of view of
production is thus shown to be in error.

Now what about syntax (since you mention it) and the problem of
whether it could exist somehow apart from everything else? Well,
as we now have a real object of study, we should investigate it
without preconceptions and see what we find out: let the chips
fall where they may. Observation will tell us whether or not, or
to what extent, syntax is autonomous. We shouldn't care in
advance what we find out. (My studies indicate that it is
not.)

Sydney M. Lamb                  http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lamb/
Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences
Rice University, Houston, TX



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