AW: "Generative" serves them right

[sergi balari]

Hi,

Tibor Kiss wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I fully agree to Ash...

Well, and me too. And with you Tibor. In fact, I'm soory if my earlier message
conveyed some bitterness, since this was not my intention (perhaps some
birthday effect just lurked in), rather, what I unseccessfully tried to say
(and that's why I referred to Lappin, Levine and Johnson) was something along
the lines of what you write below:

>
>
> I don't think that Chomsky can be cured in his style of citation, and also,
> it is not necessary to get quoted by Chomsky. An alternative strand has been
> followed by Bresnan/Gazdar et al. in the late 70s to around 1985: Beat them
> by showing them that they are wrong, i.e. make provably wrong predictions.
> Very little attempts have been made in this direction in recent years, an
> exception being the work done by Lappin/Johnson.
>



>
> In the meantime, we find a lot of work in the MP framework which is open to
> discussion or criticism. For instance, I am preparing a discussion of
> Hornstein's recent (and in my eyes strangely flawed) attempt to eliminate
> binding theory in favour of movement and pronominalization. Lasnik
> (2000:185) points out that MP cannot explain the ungrammaticality of '*John
> left not.' and '*John not left' (believe it or not, it's true). Also (cf.
> Lasnik 2000:182) the whole Pollock-contrast (embrasse souvent -- often
> kisses) cannot be handled within Chapter 4 (Categories and Transformations,
> Chomsky 1995).

Right. But as a Spanish saying says 'the righteous pay for the sinners'. So
there are attitudes that are just harmful for the field as a whole, and it's
not that bad that someone, sometime, protests.

Best,

Sergio
--
_______________________________________________
Sergio Balari Ravera
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Àrea de Lingüística General
Departament de Filologia Catalana
Facultat de Lletres, Edifici B
E-09193 Bellaterra (Barcelona)
Spain
Phone: +34 935 812 350 Fax: +34 935 812 782
_______________________________________________