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Dear all,<br>
<br>
Thanks to everyone for this super-interesting discussion! I think
that we really all agree that wellformedness judgements are crucial
to grammatical description, and they have always been – but as we
move out from highly frequent inflectional pattern (Christian
Lehmann's apt example was English <i>*goed</i> vs. <i>went</i>) to
less frequent patterns of syntax, the judgements get more difficult.
It may be that many of the judgement data that we find in the
literature are problematic, but the key role of wellformedness
judgements as such is not in question, I think. (This is like
elsewhere in cognition: We can <span style="font-size:11.0pt">"distinguish
cats from dogs from other critters and things with great
confidence", as Juergen notes.)</span><br>
<br>
In Randy's recent blogpost (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2825">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2825</a>), he
says that asking for acceptability judgements is really <span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""></span>"testing<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>the<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>person’s<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>ability<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>to<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>imagine<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>a<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>context<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>in<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>which<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>the<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>sentence<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>makes<span
style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;" class=""> </span>sense" – which I
think is exactly right (and providing more context makes the task
easier)! But crucially, many expressions constructed by the linguist
do not make sense in *any* context (they are grammatically
ill-formed), and many speakers recognize this immediately. And I
agree with Neil Myler that it's not the data that are invented, but
the "experimental stimuli", which is a routine procedure in other
fields such as psychology or behavioural economics.<br>
<br>
I don't think we should ideologize this very basic aspect of
language description. Adam Singerman mentioned "the
Tonhauser/Matthewson/etc crowd", and unfortunately, Davis et al.
(2014) wrote a paper saying that hypothesis-testing is somehow
characteristic of "C-linguists" as opposed to "D-linguists", which I
think was very odd (I think they confused descriptive with
comparative hypothesis-testing, as I noted in my commentary:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/563097">https://muse.jhu.edu/article/563097</a>). This odd distinction between
"C-" and "D-" linguists was originally made by Levinson & Evans
(2010), and Randy LaPolla, too ideologizes the discussion by putting
a "structuralist" label on it. I'm not sue that these labels are
helpful (I think that "we are all structuralists":
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2356">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2356</a>).<br>
<br>
Maybe there is one difference in interpreting acceptability
judgements that still needs further discussion, also in usage-based
linguistics: Do such judgements tell us about the mental grammars of
the speakers, or do they merely tell us about the social
acceptability of linguistic expressions? I think that it's the
latter (as I said in this blogpost:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2433">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2433</a>), whereas many linguists seem to
jumpt to conclusions about mental representations very quickly.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
****************<br>
Reference<br>
<br>
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left:
2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Davis, Henry & Gillon, Carrie &
Matthewson, Lisa. 2014. How to investigate linguistic diversity:
Lessons from the Pacific Northwest. <i>Language</i> 90(4).
e180–e226.</div>
<span class="Z3988"
title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=How%20to%20investigate%20linguistic%20diversity%3A%20Lessons%20from%20the%20Pacific%20Northwest&rft.jtitle=Language&rft.volume=90&rft.issue=4&rft.aufirst=Henry&rft.aulast=Davis&rft.au=Henry%20Davis&rft.au=Carrie%20Gillon&rft.au=Lisa%20Matthewson&rft.date=2014&rft.pages=e180-e226&rft.spage=e180&rft.epage=e226"></span></div>
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left:
2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Levinson, Stephen C. & Evans, Nicholas.
2010. Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments
on ‘The myth of language universals.’ <i>Lingua</i> 120(12).
2733–2758.<br>
<br>
</div>
<span class="Z3988"
title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Time%20for%20a%20sea-change%20in%20linguistics%3A%20Response%20to%20comments%20on%20%E2%80%98The%20myth%20of%20language%20universals%E2%80%99&rft.jtitle=Lingua&rft.volume=120&rft.issue=12&rft.aufirst=Stephen%20C.&rft.aulast=Levinson&rft.au=Stephen%20C.%20Levinson&rft.au=Nicholas%20Evans&rft.date=2010&rft.pages=2733%E2%80%932758&rft.spage=2733&rft.epage=2758"></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 11.12.22 um 06:07 schrieb Juergen
Bohnemeyer:<br>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Dear all --
I agree with Adam and Neil. I’m attaching rough proofs of my
chapter in the upcoming Handbook of Cognitive Semantics,
which is in production with Brill. The chapter surveys
sources of data for *<b>empirical</b>* research in
linguistics (with special emphasis on semantic research; but
I argue that the sources of evidence we have at our disposal
are fundamentally the same across languages). It discusses
what we can and cannot get out of corpora and spontaneous
observation, attempts a typology of elicitation techniques,
and proposes best practices for their implementation.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">(The text is
also largely identical with Ch5 of my book
<i>Semantic Research</i>, which is under contract with CUP
and hopefully will see the light of day in 2023 or 2024 at
the latest. That book, on which I’ve been laboring for a
decade (much of it in collaboration with David Wilkins), is
a stab at a textbook-cum-handbook for semantic research as
an empirical science.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Best --
Juergen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black">Juergen
Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><a
href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"
title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0078D4">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><a
href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0563C1">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Office
hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom
(Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light
Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">-- <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt" lang="RU"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt" lang="RU"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF
1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">From:
</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org"><lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a> on
behalf of Neil Myler <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:myler@bu.edu"><myler@bu.edu></a><br>
<b>Date: </b>Saturday, December 10, 2022 at 10:21 PM<br>
<b>To: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org">LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org"><LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] spectrograms in linguistic
description and for language comparison<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I agree
with everything here, with one addendum: it's a strawman
even if you do ignore more formal judgment experiments.
The examples are invented, but each data point is a
*pairing* of an example and a judgment. Since the
judgments aren't invented (except in cases of misconduct),
it's wrong to say that the data are.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Neil<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">On
Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 10:05 PM Adam Singerman <<a
href="mailto:adamsingerman@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">adamsingerman@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">I
think Randy is wrong (sorry if this comes across as
blunt) and so I<br>
am writing, on a Saturday night no less, to voice a
different view.<br>
<br>
Working inductively from a corpus is great, but no
corpus is ever<br>
going to be large enough to fully represent a given
language's<br>
grammatical possibilities. If we limit ourselves to
working<br>
inductively from corpora then many basic questions
about the languages<br>
we research will go unanswered. From a corpus of
natural data we<br>
simply cannot know whether a given pattern is
missing because the<br>
corpus is finite (i.e., it's just a statistical
accident that the<br>
pattern isn't attested) or whether there's a genuine
reason why the<br>
pattern is not showing up (i.e., its non-attestation
is principled).<br>
<br>
When I am writing up my research on Tuparí I always
prioritize<br>
non-elicited data (texts, in-person conversation,
WhatsApp chats). But<br>
interpreting and analyzing the non-elicited data
requires making<br>
reference to acceptability judgments. The prefix
(e)tareman- is a<br>
negative polarity item, and it always co-occurs with
(and inside the<br>
scope of) a negator morpheme. But the only way I can
make this point<br>
is by showing that speakers invariably reject tokens
of (e)tareman-<br>
without a licensing negator. Those rejected examples
are by definition<br>
not going to be present in any corpus of
naturalistic speech, but they<br>
tell me something crucial about what the structure
of Tuparí does and<br>
does not allow. If I limit myself to inductively
working from a<br>
corpus, fundamental facts about the prefix
(e)tareman- and about<br>
negation in Tuparí more broadly will be missed.<br>
<br>
A lot of recent scholarship has made major strides
towards improving<br>
the methodology of collecting and interpreting
acceptability<br>
judgments. The formal semanticists who work on
understudied languages<br>
(here I am thinking of Judith Tonhauser, Lisa
Matthewson, Ryan<br>
Bochnak, Amy Rose Deal, Scott AnderBois) are
extremely careful about<br>
teasing apart utterances that are rejected because
of some<br>
morphosyntactic ill-formedness (i.e.,
ungrammaticality) versus ones<br>
that are rejected because of semantic or pragmatic
oddity. The<br>
important point is that such teasing apart can be
done, and the<br>
descriptions and analyses that result from this work
are richer than<br>
what would result from a methodology that uses
corpus examination or<br>
elicitation only.<br>
<br>
One more example from Tuparí: this language has an
obligatory<br>
witnessed/non-witnessed evidential distinction, but
the deictic<br>
orientation of the distinction (to the speaker or to
the addressee) is<br>
determined via clause type. There is a nuanced set
of interactions<br>
between the evidential morphology and the
clause-typing morphology,<br>
and it would have been impossible for me to figure
out the basics of<br>
those interactions without relying primarily on
conversational data<br>
and discourse context. But I still needed to get
some acceptability<br>
judgments to ensure that the picture I'd arrived at
wasn't overly<br>
biased by the limitations of my corpus. Finding
speakers who were<br>
willing to work with me on those judgments wasn't
always easy; a fair<br>
amount of metalinguistic awareness was needed. But
it was worth it!<br>
The generalizations that I was able to publish were
much more solid<br>
than if I had worked exclusively from corpus data.
And the methodology<br>
I learned from the Tonhauser/Matthewson/etc crowd
was fundamental to<br>
this work.<br>
<br>
The call to work inductively from corpora would have
the practical<br>
effect of making certain topics totally inaccessible
for research<br>
(control vs raising structures, pied-piping,
islands, gaps in<br>
inflectional paradigms, etc) even though large scale
acceptability<br>
tasks have shown that these phenomena are "real,"
i.e., they're not<br>
just in the minds of linguists who are using
introspection. Randy's<br>
point that "no other science allows the scientist to
make up his or<br>
her own data, and so this is something linguists
should give up" is a<br>
straw man argument now that many experimentalist
syntacticians use<br>
large-scale acceptability judgments on platforms
like Mechanical Turk<br>
to get at speakers' judgments. I think we do a
disservice to our<br>
students and to junior scholars if we tell them that
the only real<br>
stuff to be studied will be in the corpora that we
assemble. Even the<br>
best corpora are finite, whereas L1 speakers'
knowledge of their<br>
language is infinitely productive.<br>
<br>
— Adam<br>
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<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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