analysis: unhappiness

[Matthew S. Dryer]

Aya proposes a possible alternative hypothesis, but my point is that whether this
alternative is correct or not is not a question of whether it "makes more sense",
but an empirical question that can really only be decided on the basis of
psycholinguistic evidence.

Matthew

On Thu 09/09/10 10:27 AM , "A. Katz" amnfn at well.com sent:
> The use of "unhappier" is idiosyncratic and not universal among
> English speakers. Rather than assuming that a person who says "unhappier"
> has a very complicated rule about trisyllabic words beginning in "un",
> would it not make more sense to see this as an indication that for this particular
> speaker, the derivation of "unhappy" is opague? That is, the word
> is treated as an indivisible whole.
> 
> On the other hand, a speaker who says "more unhappy" is probably
> aware of the derivation of unhappy and takes it into account when applying the rule
> for comparatives.
> 
> Best,
> 
> --Aya
> 
> 
> On Thu, 9 Sep 2010, Matthew S. Dryer wrote:
> 
> >
> > Two comments.
> >
> > First (elaborating perhaps on Dick Hudson's
> comment), I think there is an> important distinction between low-level
> linguistic intuitions (like whether a> word or sentence is well-formed or what it
> means) and higher-level intuitions> (like what the structure of a word or sentence
> is).  One can take the position> that we need to account for the former (while
> recognizing that they are not> always reliable) but not the latter.
> >
> > Second, the tension here is not only between
> evidence from speaker intuitions> versus evidence from psycholinguistic
> experiments.  There is also a tension> between deciding on the correct analysis
on the
> basis of a priori simplicity> arguments versus deciding on the correct
> analysis on the basis of> psycholinguistic evidence (see Derwing 1973). 
> The bracketing paradox that Dan> referred to that arises with the word
> <unhappier> (semantics argues for> [[un+happi] + er], morphology and phonology
> argues for [un + [happi+er]] (the> comparative suffix can only be attached to
> adjectives containing one or two> syllables) is only a paradox if one assumes that
> speakers adopt the simplest> analysis.  For example, if speakers adopt a more
> complex rule for either of these> (e.g. perhaps the rule for attaching -er can
> apply exceptionally to trisyllabic> words beginning with un-), then the bracketing
> paradox disappears.>
> > Matthew
> >
> > On Thu 09/09/10  8:16 AM , Richard Hudson dick at ling
> .ucl.ac.uk sent:>> Thanks Dan. I'm sure you're right, and I'd
> be the first to agree that>> conscious judgements are only one kind of
> evidence that we need to take>> into account. I admire Carson Schutze's work
> (which I reviewed in fact),>> and of course I've been aware of complaints
> about judgements by people>> like Labov for decades.
> >>
> >> But you're missing my main point, which is
> that all judgements aren't>> equally reliable.  If you want to know how
> /unhappiness/ is structured,>> ask a linguist, not a five-year old. And one
> of the by-products of>> education may be increased sensitivity to
> syntax - which is one of the>> many reasons why linguists need to pay more
> attention to education.>>
> >> Best wishes,  Dick
> >>
> >> Richard Hudson www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm>> On 09/09/2010 11:39,
Daniel Everett
> wrote:>>> Dick,
> >>>
> >>> You raise an important issue here
> about>> methodology. I believe that intuitions are a
> fine way to generate>> hypotheses and even to test them - to a
> degree. But while it might not have>> been feasible for Huddleston, Pullum, and
> the other contributors to the>> Cambridge Grammar to conduct experiments on
> every point of the grammar,>> experiments could have only made the grammar
> better. The use of intuitions,>> corpora, and standard psycholinguistic
> experimentation (indeed, Standard>> Social Science Methodology)  is vital for
> taking the field forward and for>> providing the best support for different
> analyses. Ted Gibson and Ev>> Fedorenko have written a very useful new
> paper on this, showing serious>> shortcomings with intuitions as the sole
> source of evidence, in their>> paper: "The need for quantitative
> methods in syntax and semantics>> research".>
> >>> Carson Schutze and Wayne Cowart, among
> others,>> have also written convincingly on
> this.>>>> It is one reason that a team from
> Stanford, MIT>> (Brain and Cognitive Science), and
> researchers from Brazil are beginning a>> third round of experimental work
among the
> Pirahas, since my own work on>> the syntax was, like almost every other
> field researcher's, based on native>> speaker intuitions and
> corpora.>>>> The discussion of methodologies reminds
> me of>> the initial reactions to Greenberg's work on
> classifying the languages of>> the Americas. His methods were strongly (and
> justifiably) criticized.>> However, I always thought that his methods
> were a great way of generating>> hypotheses, so long as they were ultimately
> put to the test of standard>> historical linguistics methods. And the same
> seems true for use of>> native-speaker intuitions.>
> >>> -- Dan
> >>>
> >>>> We linguists can add a further layer
> of>> explanation to the judgements, but some
> judgements do seem to be more>> reliable than others. And if we have to wait
> for psycholinguistic evidence>> for every detailed analysis we make, our
> whole discipline will immediately>> grind to a halt. Like it or not, native
> speaker judgements are what put us>> linguists ahead of the rest in handling fine
> detail. Imagine writing the>> Cambridge Grammar of the English Language
> (or the OED) without using native>> speaker judgements.>>
> >>>> Best wishes,  Dick Hudson
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
>