[Corpora-List] corpus linguistics

[Mike Maxwell]

Charles Meyer wrote:
> Frankly, I see no relevancy of generative grammar to corpus linguistics. 
> I heard Chomsky speak a couple of years ago and comment that people who 
> analyze corpora were engaging in the equivalent of pre-Galilean physics. 
> He also stated that real data was so noisy that it should basically be 
> ignored. ...Granted, other 
> generativists have different views, but in general, data collection has 
> played at best a marginal role in generative grammar. 

It seems to me that there are two distinct issues: the relevancy of 
generative linguistics to corpus linguistics, and the relevancy 
(perceived or real) of corpus linguistics to generative linguistics. 
The above incidents (i.e. the above paragraph, except for the first 
line) speak only to the second of these, I would think, and may not be 
worth pursuing on this list (since I seem to be one of the few 
generativists here).

> I would argue that 
> there are other theories more relevant to the interests of corpus 
> linguists ( e.g. functional grammar or cognitive grammar). 

...and that seems to be an opinion that would be useful to discuss on 
this list.  One issue, for example, is how well parsers can be trained 
on corpora that have been annotated according to this or that generative 
theory, and whether the result is at all useful (as compared with, say, 
training on a corpus annotated according to functional or cognitive 
grammar).  Of course, there are lots of generative theories.  Besides 
the various incarnations of Chomskian theories, there are LFG, GPSG 
(since superseded by HPSG, which is surely a generative theory), and 
probably several other theories, the proponents at least of which would 
call themselves generativists.

Another question worth pursuing (IMO) is whether training parsers from a 
corpus (whether annotated or not) could be done better if the parser 
incorporated this or that principle of generative linguistics.  (Some of 
these principles might not be unique to generative theories, I suppose.) 
  This would, or course, be the computational equivalent of innate 
knowledge.
-- 
	Mike Maxwell
	maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu
	"Theorists...have merely to lock themselves in a room
	with a blackboard and coffee maker to conduct their business."
	--Bruce A. Schumm, Deep Down Things

_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora