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[Lise Menn, Linguistics, CU Boulder]

I'd like to take issue with the idea that syntax or lexicon can be studied
only in natural contexts as much as with the idea that it can be properly
studied without looking at those contexts.  No biologist would argue
either that test-tube studies are useless or that field studies are
useless; the problems to be solved are so difficult that on the one hand,
aritficially-controlled situations are needed to get a handle on what the
basic processes might be, but on the other, field studies are needed to
decide which of the processes that take place in the lab are actually
operating in the real world.  And in between the test-tube and the field
are all sorts of intermediate experimental levels.
        In linguistics we similarly need a full spectrum of approaches;
for the last several years, i've been working with colleagues on one type
of experimental functional linguistics, using descriptions of minimal-pair
sets of pictures to look at effects of empathy and inferrabilty of
information (posters at LSA 1995 and 1997, paper in press, Brain and
Language);  Russ Tomlin has a more-controlled experimental approach with
his fish videos. In the other direction, less-controlled but by the same
token more natural, is the major 'Frog-story' work on narratives (Berman &
Slobin), using a pictured story, and of course Chafe's Pear Stories.
        Lise Menn