empirical basis, typology, and gradience

[Detmar Meurers]

Raul wrote under subject "Re: The appeal of P&P":
> Correct me if I am wrong again, but my impression is that work in HPSG has
> concentrated too much on analyses of a single phenomenon in a single
> language, too much for my taste, that is.

I disagree with this assessment: good empirical work on theoretically
interesting phenomena in my experience is exactly what makes it
possible to have meaningful discussions across frameworks.

> don't know enough about it). The hierarchical lexicon is a very powerful
> tool to do typology and contrastive linguistics,

Has this "very powerful tool" ever been used for typological work?  If
so, I'd appreciate a pointer.

> and when one adds defaults
> to it one can have a beautiful theory of markedness.

A theory of markedness is an exciting topic - but all work I know
which seriously investigates markedness points out that defaults are
not the solution to this problem, let alone a beautiful one. Instead
of defaults, arithmetic models seem to be what is needed to address
the topic.  See, e.g., Keller, Frank. 2000. Gradience in Grammar:
Experimental and Computational Aspects of Degrees of
Grammaticality. PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~keller/papers/phd.html

Beste Gruesse,
Detmar

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Detmar Meurers                              Fax: Int + 614 292-8833
The Ohio State University                   Tel: Int + 641 292-0461
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