The End of Linguistics

[John McCreery]

At 11:21 PM +0800 3/26/2001, Kerim Friedman wrote:
> John,
>
> I don't see how your quotes from Halpern differ from my characterization of
>his argument. It is a syllogism:
>
> (1) linguistics is not unified
> (2) that which is not unified is not science
> (3) linguistics is not a science.
>
> Therefore, he suggests, linguistics has failed.
>

My criticism is that you have read as a syllogism a probabilistic argument
which is, ipso facto, not a syllogism and requires a judgement concerning
the degree to which (1) is true which is then taken as a basis for
estimating whether (3) is likely to be true in some foreseeable future.

Once you recognize that probabilistic judgments are involved and that where
the probabilities lie between 0 and 1 is highly relevant to the argument,
you may see, for example, that appealing to the model of unresolved problems
in physics is a red herring.

Think, for example, of the physicists and linguists as two football teams. A
coach watching the physicists practice may notice that there are problems in
coordinating the line and the backfield; but every member of the team knows
how to play football and the team's winning record is astonishing.

A second coach watching the linguists sees people scattered all over the
field, apparently moving at random. A group in one corner has a soccer ball,
a cluster in another has a basketball, a lone fellow at the fifty-yard line
has a football and appears to be trying to practice a punt.  It may be
possible that this is only a moment of confusion before everyone suits up
and gets down to business or that all are involved in some mysterious sport
which isn't football at all, but whose rules will soon become clear. Isn't
it far more probable, however, that no agreement exists on what the game is
about?

John McCreery
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