axioms

[Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman]

Deat Funknetters,
    The problem that the linguistics field faces, is that theoretical paradigms overgenerate or are insufficient and are therefore in constant modification, which is why Dr. Steen's comments are very relevant.    This is good.  However, when serious modification of the basic tenets of the theory are routinely necessary to accommodate the reality of language data, nobody is declaring the theoretical framework or analytical strategy  falsified or invalid.  In fact, it remains in use for a long time.  Then, without saying much, people just move away from it, or stop working in it, because everyone is too cowed by the reality.  It takes an entire career or more to falsify a theory, and researchers and students in America are often being repressed and coerced within programs when their discoveries or questions touch upon the work of their professors or peers, or established linguists suffer when challenging theoretical authorities.--This repression happens in both functionalist and formal programs. When funding is scarce, it is the dissident who gets axed, even if his/her work is good. Because there is always political evaluation and illegitimate assistance to prop up weaker candidates who will do what theoretical authorities say. Too many of us have stakes in maintaining the status quo, even when it is invalid.
   In phonology, folks are still using binary +/- nasal even though there are seven positions of the velum--and these are significant to attested phenomena.  the gestures in the production of liquids are also problematic to formal theory.  however, the people working in this must go into a separate subfield--Articulatory phonology--and have for a long time hidden out in speech or psych departments because their findings are still not sufficiently impacting the state of accepted theory within the linguistics world.  Most phonologists do not keep up with relevant literature within the speech world, which has higher scientific standards than the linguistics field. In related fields and even within them, "experts"  are talking past each other instead of working on the implications for the theories that they are using, and this is killing scientific progress.
   Did anyone declare Sympathy theory dead?  It was always a cheap theoretical trick, and now even McCarthy does not use it anymore.  In fact, he is now proposing candidate chains.  Is anyone emphasizing the fact that it is a radical departure from parallelism and is in fact confirming serial derivation?  Many still teach the revered cannons out of Kager of parallelism, economy, etc. as if they were irrefutable facts. As well, folks, there is no conflict between functionalism and Optimality Theory, in fact, the typological orientation of the theory is ideal for research on universals, which may typologists and active descriptive linguistis do.  How many functionalist departments do OT, or even want to hire an OT phonologist? 
     There are very few doing what Andries Coetzee is doing in experimental optimality theory.  Yet, students have been squelched, not admitted  or driven out of programs because they raised issues of grounding, or want to take social or historical factors into account,  even when it is supported by respected literature, and equally out of functionalist departments  because they try to maintain connection with formal theory.  As a result, departments in America are falling behind the rest of the world scientifically because we are injuring our productivity, and linguistics departments often lose the funding battles within their own institutions because of their lack of scientific achievement. Funding linguistics departments is considered to be a waste of money, and we need to begin to assume our share of the blame for this state of affairs.  
    We need to begin to have official minimal standards for a programs to be recognized within the linguistics field, much in the same way speech and psych departments do.  This way, a university will be forced to hire a linguist within a particular area or a construct a lab instead of spending money on improvements to already excellent athletic facilities, or pay a football coach a half a million dollars. The LSA needs to be more than just a body that holds summer school every two years and job talk preparation.  It needs to establish the power of accreditation so that departments don't go without faculty in essential areas, either with the consent of more powerful linguists in other subfields who want their buddy specialists hired, or because the university wants to concentrate on football or a white elephant project with alumni pressure. 
   My apologies if my tone has gotten a little disagreeable.  I welcome any and all comments on and critiques of the thoughts expressed above, especially if I am mistaken.
   
______________________________
Diane Lesley-Neuman
Linguistics Program
Wells A-614
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824 Quoting "Steen, G.J." <gj.steen at let.vu.nl>:

> Dear funknetters,
>
> Karl Popper would not agree with Tom Givon that axioms are not a 
> useful notion in empirical science. In his The Logic of Scientific 
> Discovery, he discusses how axioms can be used to construct and 
> re-construct scientific theories that can be tested (1977: 71-75 and 
> elsewhere). Popper thus makes an attempt to make the notion of axiom 
> productive for empirical science in a way that has been rather 
> influential in subsequent philosophy of science. You do not have to 
> agree with him, but may learn a lot from his analysis.
>
> Best,
>
> Gerard Steen
>
> Professor of Language Use and Cognition
> Director, Language, Cognition, Communication program
> Faculty of Arts, 11A-35
> Department of Language and Communication
> VU University Amsterdam
> De Boelelaan 1105
> 1081 HV Amsterdam
>
> T: ++31-20-5986433
> F: ++31-20-5986500
>
> http://www.let.vu.nl/staf/gj.steen/
> ________________________________________
> From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu 
> [funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Tom Givon 
> [tgivon at uoregon.edu]
> Sent: 03 January 2009 19:37
> To: funknet
> Subject: [FUNKNET] axioms
>
> RE: Bischoff:
>
> Maybe it would be useful to point out that "axioms" is not really a
> useful notion in  empirical science, but rather belongs to the domain of
> logic. It is of course true that formal linguists may have left some
> with the impression that "axioms" can be imported into linguistics, but
> this simply points out to a profound misunderstanding about what is or
> isn't "empirical". The closest one comes in science to "axioms" are
> facts that have been around for such a long time that, by general
> agreement, we take them for granted, i.e. presuppose them at the start
> of any new investigation. But their logical status is still not that of
> "axioms", since initially they had to be discovered and defended on
> empirical grounds. Axiomatic systems tend to be, by definition, closed
> and and internally consistent. According to both  Russell ('theory of
> types') and Goedel, they are thus incomplete. Science, on the other
> hand, is never closed, but rather an open-ended system that keeps
> changing with new facts & new insights.  Happy New Year,  TG
>
>