Prevailing approaches do not have a computational lexicon

[Andrew Carnie]

Hi All,

On a more serious level. Unproductive name calling aside -- Bob is
right. Computation here means combinatorics.

The standard view these days in minimalism for everyone  *EXCEPT*
Chomsky and his closest buddies, is that we have essentially retreated to
a model like that of generative semantics. That is, in the
Minimalist/Distributed Morphology, there is no combinatorics in the
lexicon. It all happens in the syntax, then morpholgy takes over and
builds words. For more have a look at Harley & Noyers State of the Article
in Glot (republished I believe in a Mouton book) on DM, or my article in
Syntax (2000), or the DM homepage (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/dm/)

Best,

Andrew




On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, Andrew Carnie wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> If you haven't all read it yet, take a gander at Elan Dresher's commentary
> on Lappin, Levine & Johnson in the recent issue of Glot. (Available
> through Linguist List Plus if you are a subscriber).
>
> Your local neighborhood post-modernist hack.
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, Robert Levine wrote:
>
> > Ash---My own sense that `computational' is used as a systematic,
> > rhetorically motivated malapropism for `combinatorial' in the
> > minimalist litany. As Shalom points out, the MP literature is bare of
> > actual computations, in the sense of an explicit set of steps applying
> > to well-defined input and yielding a fully specified
> > output. `Computational' is used by minimalists---just as Sokal and
> > Bricmont say, in their wonderful book Fashionable Nonsense, about the
> > abuse of of genuine science by postmodernist hacks---to give a `veneer
> > of rigor to their own discourse'. But really, all they mean is
> > combinatorics, some system for putting elements together to generate
> > larger elements. So far as I can tell, nothing else is intended, at
> > least extensionally...
> >
> > cheers[???],
> >
> > Bob
> >
> >
> >
> > > Hi Ash,
> > >    I wonder why you are surprised by this phenomenon. There are two points
> > >    worth noting here. (i) It is very common for theoretical linguists
> > >    working in the minimalist framework to follow Chomsky in referring to
> > >    syntaxas "the computational component" of the grammar while assiduously avoiding
> > > clear specification of the computational properties of the syntactic
> > > operations that they posit as elements of this component. I have found
> > > that when pressed on this and related issues many minimalists tend to
> > > retreat to the claim that they are only concerned with a theory of
> > > competence, and so they are not responsible for a computational account of
> > > the grammar, which they assign to impelmentation or performance. The
> > > question remains, then, in what sense they are describing syntax as a
> > > computational component of the grammar. (ii) The widespread lack of
> > > awareness (indifference?) to work going on in other theoretical frameworks
> > > and to research in computational linguistics is legion, and it has been
> > > noted many times. From my own experience in these matters I have found
> > > that regardless of how often one raises these questions, it has little
> > > impact on working practise in large areas of the field. It is probably
> > > best simply to set them aside in order avoid pointless irritation and to
> > > use the time to pursue productive research. Regards.                               Shalom
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>      O  O  O  O  O  		Andrew Carnie, Ph.D.
>     <|\/|\/|\/|\/|>  		Asst. Professor of Linguistics
>      =  =  =  =  =  		Department of Linguistics
>     << << << << << 		Douglass 200E, University of Arizona
>     ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ 		Tucson, AZ 85721
>
> 				Tel: (520) 621 2802
> 				Cell: (520) 971 1166
> 				http://linguistlist.org/~carnie
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     O  O  O  O  O  		Andrew Carnie, Ph.D.
    <|\/|\/|\/|\/|>  		Asst. Professor of Linguistics
     =  =  =  =  =  		Department of Linguistics
    << << << << << 		Douglass 200E, University of Arizona
    ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ 		Tucson, AZ 85721

				Tel: (520) 621 2802
				Cell: (520) 971 1166
				http://linguistlist.org/~carnie