[Corpora-List] Do you think LINGUISTICS is SCIENCE or ARTS?

[John F. Sowa]

DW> One of the dangers of contrasting (for example) statistics with
 > logic is that this is really about comparing empiricist and
 > rationalist methods.

I agree that one should not confuse mathematical methods with
any kind of dogma -- empiricist, rationalist, or theological.

Mathematical methods, including logic and statistics, are neutral
with respect to any kind of application.  For example, one could
apply statistics to bridge either by a priori calculation of the
probabilities or by gathering data about how people play the game.

DW> ... every new science must find a fertile balance between these
 > scientific methods, and the recent swing from "linguistics should
 > be rationalist" to "linguistics should be empiricist" takes us to
 > another glass ceiling.

As a science, linguistics is as old as Aristotle, and the pendulum
is always swinging.  In the 1950s, information theory and grammar
discovery procedures were dominant, and Charles Fries did some
very interesting work with the tiny corpora available.

In the late '50s, Chomsky began his campaign against statistics,
information theory, grammar discovery procedures, and finite-state
machines.  Instead, he promoted "the native speaker's intuition"
(i.e., his own intuition) as the ultimate standard.

Computational linguists have always been more empirical.  Even
when they used their own intuition to write grammar rules, they
tested them by running their systems on actual data.  That's just
as empirical as a physicist's using intuition to write a theory
and then testing its predictions against the data.

The ultimate criterion for science is the ability to make predictions
about future observations.   It's irrelevant whether the methodology
began with intuition, statistical analysis, or some combination
of both.

John Sowa


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