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<div>Dear Bernat</div>
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Which generativist case theory actually contains a "set of tested explanations"? How are "tested explanations" different from "predictions"?
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<div>A.<br>
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<div><font size="2" face="Verdana">Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)</font></div>
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<div id="divRpF255379" style="direction: ltr;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2" color="#000000"><b>De :</b> Lingtyp [lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org] de la part de Bernat Bardagil Mas [bardagil@berkeley.edu]<br>
<b>Envoyé :</b> mardi 11 février 2020 13:17<br>
<b>À :</b> Eitan Grossman<br>
<b>Cc :</b> paolo Ramat; LINGTYP<br>
<b>Objet :</b> Re: [Lingtyp] The (ab)use of the term "theory" in (generative) linguistics<br>
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<div dir="ltr">There is another sense of theory, that I have not yet seen discussed here, which corresponds to the shall we say technical sense of the word, with a meaning of "a set of tested explanations of a phenomenon" (as in the film title A Theory of Everything).
The word is used quite a bit in that sense in the (transformational) generative framework, and that gives us things like case theory, or how someone might propose their theory of inverse agreement in language L. I wouldn't call that an abuse.
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<div>Bernat</div>
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<div><font color="#666666" size="1">- - </font></div>
<div><font color="#666666" size="1">Bernat Bardagil</font></div>
<div><font color="#666666" size="1">Postdoctoral researcher</font></div>
<div><font color="#666666" size="1">Department of Linguistics, UC Berkeley</font></div>
<div><font color="#666666" size="1"><a href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/bbardagil" target="_blank">http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/bbardagil</a> </font></div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 6:38 AM Eitan Grossman <<a href="mailto:eitan.grossman@mail.huji.ac.il" target="_blank">eitan.grossman@mail.huji.ac.il</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div dir="auto">Hi all,
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<div dir="auto">In oral comments and reviews, I encounter two main uses of "theory" and "theoretical." One is simply an autonym of generative linguists, as in "John only hangs out with theoretical linguists" or "Mary does great fieldwork but we want to hire
a theoretician."</div>
<div dir="auto">You might also encounter something along the lines of "This abstract makes some very interesting observations but does not reference the theoretical literature, and it is unclear how it relates to theory." </div>
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<div dir="auto">The other use is something like "having a point (beyond describing facts)" or "referencing general linguistic literature." </div>
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<div dir="auto">But in my experience, the first is by far the most common.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Eitan</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">בתאריך יום ג׳, 11 בפבר׳ 2020, 12:16, מאת paolo Ramat <<a href="mailto:paolo.ramat@unipv.it" target="_blank">paolo.ramat@unipv.it</a>>:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Hi everyone,
<div>Martin H. has written that <<there is confusion also about ]...] the relation between "typology" and "theory">>. I fully agree. But Martin says further that <<the term "theory" can be used as a count noun , or as a mass noun ("linguistic theory", "grammatical
theory">>. This sounds rather strange: I had always thought that mass nouns are nouns such as 'sugar', 'blood', 'sand' etc. Can we consider abstract nouns like 'philosophy','theology' or even 'democracy' as mass nouns? Let alone by adding an adjective as
in "linguistic/grammatic theory". This is not the habitual use of the term and sounds confusing. </div>
<div>Paolo</div>
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<div dir="ltr">prof. dr. Paolo Ramat
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<div> Università di Pavia (retired)</div>
<div>Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)</div>
<div>Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente<br>
<div>'Academia Europaea'</div>
<div>'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member</div>
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<div>piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia</div>
<div>##39 0382 27027</div>
<div>347 044 98 44</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Il giorno mar 11 feb 2020 alle ore 10:47 Haspelmath, Martin <<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>> ha scritto:<br>
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<div>I would talk about "confusion", not about "abuse", because there are many different kinds of linguistic theories. Moreover, the term "theory" can be used as a count noun (as in the last sentence), or as a mass noun ("linguistic theory", "grammatical theory").
Linguists rarely reflect on kinds of theories, or on kinds of senses of the word "theory", and the papers that Hartmut mentioned have not become well-known. So there is a lot of confusion.<br>
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In my 2010 paper on "Framework-free grammatical theory" (<a href="https://zenodo.org/record/814947" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://zenodo.org/record/814947</a>), I distinguished four senses of "theory".<br>
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But there is confusion also about the relation between "typology" and "theory": Quite a few people have contrasted them as if they were different ways of doing linguistics, or different parts of research, e.g.<br>
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<font size="-1">Hengeveld, Kees. 1992. <em>Non-verbal predication: Theory, typology, diachrony</em>. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.<br>
Polinsky, Maria & Robert Kluender. 2007. Linguistic typology and theory construction: Common challenges ahead.
<em>Linguistic Typology</em> 11(1). 273–283.<br>
Van Langendonck, Willy. 2008. <em>Theory and typology of proper names</em>. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.</font><br>
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But on the other hand, it is clear that "atheoretical typology" is impossible, so this usage is confusing. See this recent blogpost, which proposes an alternative:
<a href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1915" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1915</a><br>
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Martin<br>
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On 11.02.20 10:18, Hartmut Haberland wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)">Jün-Tin Wang 1973. ”On the representation of generative grammars as first-order theories.” In: Radu J. Bogdan and Ilkka Niinilouto eds.
<i>Logic,</i> <i>Language and Probability</i>. Dordrecht: Reidel, 302-316<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)">Hans-Heinrich Lieb 1974. "Grammars as theories: The case for axiomatic grammar (Part I)".
<i>Theoretical Linguistics</i> 1: 39-115.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)">Hans-Heinrich Lieb 1976. "Grammars as theories: The case for axiomatic grammar (Part II)".
</span><i><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)">Theoretical Linguistics</span></i><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)"> 3: 1-98.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE-AT" style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Fra:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> Hartmut Haberland
<a href="mailto:hartmut@ruc.dk" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"><hartmut@ruc.dk></a>
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<b>Sendt:</b> 11. februar 2020 09:33<br>
<b>Til:</b> TALLMAN Adam <a href="mailto:Adam.TALLMAN@cnrs.fr" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">
<Adam.TALLMAN@cnrs.fr></a><br>
<b>Emne:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] The (ab)use of the term "theory" in (generative) linguistics<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Hans-Heinrich Lieb has written extensively about this in the
<span style="color:rgb(31,73,125)">7</span>0s, also Jün-tin Wang. </span>Hartmut <u></u><u></u></p>
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Den 11. feb. 2020 kl. 07.12 skrev TALLMAN Adam <<a href="mailto:Adam.TALLMAN@cnrs.fr" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">Adam.TALLMAN@cnrs.fr</a>>:<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black">Hello all,
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black">Does anyone have any sources that discuss the abuse of the term "theory" in generative linguistics (or in linguistics generally)? I figure that a paper like this must exist given
the deeply insightful comments that I have received by some reviewers.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black">best,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black">Adam<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt; font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black">Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)</span><span style="font-size:10pt; font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif; color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt; font-family:Verdana,sans-serif; color:black; background-color:white">ELDP-SOAS -- Postdoctorant<br>
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Bureau 207, 14 av. Berthelot, Lyon (07)</span><span style="font-size:10pt; font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif; color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<pre cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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