conversation and syntax

[Tom Givon]

Hey, Pablo. There is no need for /ad hominem/ comments about Fritz 
Newmeyer. First, he is still VERY active, and in addition to being 
Emeritus in UW he is still on the faculty of two other universities. 
(Just for the record, I am Emeritus too, and, alas, it hasn't slowed 
down the pace of my work; yet). And second, his agenda is based on 
intellectual considerations, not on retirement or senile dementia. He 
keeps up with the literature, both the side of it he likes & the side of 
it he is critical of. And do give him credit for counting text 
frequencies. I know a lot of ideologically right-thinking people who 
don't. Or if they do, they don't understand why they do it. So in a way, 
Fritz is a useful bridge person across the great linguistic divide. He 
does believe in Chomskian generative grammar, particularly in the 
separation between performance & competence. You may not share his 
position, but it is sincerely taken and articulately argued. So like, 
let's chill, dude.  TG

========



Pablo.Kirtchuk at ac-versailles.fr wrote:
> Newmeyer's 'grammar is grammar, usage is usage'  claim denotes a profound misunderstanding that goes far beyond grammar and even language. Probably, being an Emeritus, FN is a man of his time, and he is not to be blamed for it. He is certainly not ahead of his time.
>   
>
> Pablo Kirtchuk
>
>   
>> The paper Fritz mentioned is surely worth reading (I have, a while 
>> back). It makes two important point, one explicitly, the other 
>> implicitly. (i) (explicit) That there are no independent syntactic 
>> tests 
>> showing that V-COMP constructions behave like a simplex rather than 
>> complex clauses. The examples of the two usage of V-COMPS, the 
>> "direct-speech-act" ('grammaticalized') use and the "complex" use 
>> (Diessel 2005) have not been shown to differ syntactically, only 
>> semantically. That is:
>>
>> Direct speech-act: I know she's not coming
>> Complex use: He knew she wasn't coming.
>>
>> (ii) (implicit) That semantic grammaticalization does not 
>> automatically 
>> lead to immediate syntactic grammaticalization. In diachrony (and 
>> on-line communication, its progenitor) quite often form lags behind 
>> meaning.
>> There is another point Fritz does not make explicitly in his paper, 
>> but 
>> it is still implicit in his discussion. This is part of his earlier 
>> agenda about "Grammar is grammar and usage is usage". Or, as 
>> corollary, 
>> that usage frequencies are irrelevant to synchronic grammar. In the 
>> case 
>> of Sandy Thompson's original paper, I think usage frequencies may 
>> be 
>> very interesting for understanding what grammar does, or how 
>> grammar 
>> arises both diachronically and developmentally. Both Fritz and 
>> Peter 
>> Harder have criticized Sandy's paper for claiming that the 
>> grammaticalized speech-act usage of V-COMP constructions is the 
>> "basic" 
>> use, and ignoring the "complex" use. This of course depends on 
>> which 
>> genre of language use is "basic". The grammaticalized use certainly 
>> predominates in spoken language. But in adult spoken language the 
>> "complex" use is already entrenched, and in certain usage context 
>> (talking about the past) may even predominate.
>>
>> In diachrony, there is strong tho by no means conclusive evidence 
>> that 
>> the direct speech-act usage is earlier, and that the "complex" use 
>> follows. And Diessel (2005) documents fairly conclusively that the 
>> same 
>> is true in early child language development. So while usage 
>> frequency 
>> (and its gradual change) may not interest Fritz, I think it 
>> interests 
>> many of us who look at grammar not only as a synchronic entity, but 
>> also 
>> as a product of developmentt, be it evolutionary, diachronic or 
>> acquisitional.
>>
>> There is a web site for the Rice 12th symposium (Rice U., 
>> Linguistics 
>> Dept.) where two of my papers on this topic are lodged (one on the 
>> diachrony of complex VPs, the other on the acquisition of same). I 
>> lost 
>> the specs for this web site, but more astute minds can probably 
>> find it.
>>
>> Cheers, TG
>>
>> ===============
>>
>>
>>
>> Frederick J Newmeyer wrote:
>>     
>>> Dear Funknetters,
>>>
>>> I think that some of you might be interested in the following 
>>>       
>> paper of 
>>     
>>> mine:
>>>
>>> 'What Conversational English Tells Us About the Nature of Grammar'
>>>
>>> ABSTRACT
>>> It has become an article of faith among many functional and 
>>>       
>> cognitive 
>>     
>>> linguists that the complex abstract structures posited by 
>>>       
>> generative 
>>     
>>> grammarians are an artifact of 'disembodied sentences that 
>>>       
>> analysts 
>>     
>>> have made up ad hoc, ... rather than utterances produced by real 
>>> people in real discourse situations' (Michael Tomasello). Their 
>>>       
>> view 
>>     
>>> is that if one focuses on 'naturally occurring discourse', then 
>>> grammar will reveal itself to be primarily a matter of memorized 
>>> formulas and simple constructions. This paper challenges that 
>>>       
>> view. 
>>     
>>> Basing its claims on a 170MB corpus of conversational English, it 
>>> argues that the nature of real discourse reinforces the need for 
>>>       
>> a 
>>     
>>> sophisticated engine for representing and accessing grammatical 
>>> knowledge. At a more specific level, it challenges Sandra 
>>>       
>> Thompson's 
>>     
>>> claim that evidence from conversation leads to the conclusion 
>>>       
>> that 
>>     
>>> sentential complements (e.g., 'you're ready to go' in 'I guess 
>>>       
>> you're 
>>     
>>> ready to go') are not grammatically subordinate.
>>>
>>> The paper can be accessed at the following url:
>>>
>>> http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz/000679
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Fritz
>>>
>>> Frederick J. Newmeyer
>>> Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
>>> Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon 
>>>       
>> Fraser 
>>     
>>> University
>>> [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>     
>
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