36.243, Reviews: The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics: Ryan M. Nefdt (2024)

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Subject: 36.243, Reviews: The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics: Ryan M. Nefdt (2024)

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Date: 17-Jan-2025
From: Keith Begley [kthbgly at gmail.com]
Subject: Ryan M. Nefdt (2024)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35-1498

Title: The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics
Subtitle: A Contemporary Outlook
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
           http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009082853

Author(s): Ryan M. Nefdt

Reviewer: Keith Begley

SUMMARY
The author, Nefdt (hereafter N), identifies as his target audience
“advanced students of either philosophy or linguistics and experienced
practitioners at the intersection between these fields” (p. x). N’s
“goal is to provide not only a songbird’s-eye view of the
interconnections
between different subdisciplines and frameworks of linguistic theory
but to showcase common problems and present novel analyses of the
study of language that only a contemporary philosophical overview can
offer” (p. ix). The book has xi + 231 pages, beginning with a short
preface, and has an index. It is divided into eight main chapters,
each addressing a different subfield or area, and a two-page
concluding chapter. N says that “Each chapter can be considered a
sustained, self-contained argument based on the subfield at hand” (p.
ix). Each includes a helpful ‘Further Reading’ section with plentiful
annotation.
In the introductory chapter, N asks what theoretical linguistics is.
He tells us that it is identified by a guiding set of core questions:
“1a. What is Language?
b. What is a language?
2. How do we acquire languages?
3. How is linguistic communication possible?
4. How did language evolve?” (p. 3)
Answering these he takes to be neither necessary nor sufficient,
although “To be a theoretical linguist, of whichever variety, you have
to attempt to answer some, if not all, of these questions in a
coherent manner” (p. 3). N rightly notes the logical priority of the
initial questions over the others. Despite this, the core question
approach is not developed much further.
The chapter also treats of grammaticality and formal approaches. I
wonder about the wisdom of including only cursory descriptions of
finite automata, etc., in view of the advanced target audience. At the
same time, the question regarding what these “machines” are goes
overlooked. After recalling early findings that natural languages
outstrip regular languages and finite automata, N asks: “So why don’t
we go for the most expressive grammars?” (p. 12). He gives the
internally correct answer that it is because they would outstrip the
grammar of natural language. However, any reasonable version of a
computational theory of a physically dependent mind will recognise
that it could not possibly be an unrestricted Turing machine (cf. p.
10), because there are no implementations of such machines, only of
linear bounded automata or their equivalents. It is a truth rarely
spoken, but one I would have expected to come out in this
philosophical monograph.
N asks “if all the mathematical facts about formal languages were
settled, what would be left of linguistics? To hard-line platonists,
the answer might be nothing” (pp. 13–14). N neglects to say who these
‘hard-line platonists’ are, or why they would answer this way, but he
refers to Katz and Postal in the previous paragraph. Katz at least
does not hold this view (Begley 2023, pp. 20, 24, 26). More generally,
it is a fundamental misunderstanding of Platonic enquiry to think that
it must be in no way ‘empirical’ (Politis 2021, pp. 46–48). There are
famous dialogues written about this, with footnotes. Here, as
elsewhere, N refers mainly to Katz’ first book on realism in
linguistics (1981), often without even mentioning his later books
(especially 1990 & 1998). If the reader seeks a remedy for this
absence, I shamelessly recommend my own recent treatment (Begley
2023).
In Chapter 2, entitled “What Is a Possible Human Language?”, N asks
what he calls “a big-picture question that’s generally gone
unexplored: what is a possible human or natural language?” (p. 23). N
wishes to rule-out Language being an “a priori abstract object”,
preferring to see it as “clearly a scientific abstraction from
particular languages, just like […] other scientific objects are” (p.
30). However, without further argumentation, this is just to beg the
question regarding those objects, as there is a broader and continuing
debate in the metaphysics of science (e.g., Mumford & Tugby (eds)
2013; Berman 2020; Tugby 2022). N remarks that ontological debates are
largely absent from science, a point that should be of no surprise to
philosophers. He attempts an analogy: “No one in the cognitive
neuroscience of memory asks how individual tokens or memories are
related to some platonistic concept of Memory, divorced from its
instantiations.” (p. 30: n . 12). As it happens, even Plato himself
didn’t ask this, so it is uncertain what if anything it shows. Again,
this is not how that kind of enquiry proceeds.
N quotes Devitt’s definition of language as being one that “lacks
overt ontological commitments” (p. 31). The reader must forgive me for
over time having grown highly suspicious of arguments from ontological
detente. The definition includes the claim that language is a “system
of representations or symbols that is constituted by a set of
governing rules” (Devitt 2013, p. 95). It is not at all clear, to me
at least, why we should take claims that something is representational
or constituted by rules as being in any way ontologically neutral and
uncommitting.
N takes “A Modal Approach to Linguistic Possibility”, by which he
means a formal one. I found this to be a very surface-level
introduction, with some inaccuracy. At one point, N even confuses
possibility with contingency: “Possible claims (indicated by ‘◊’) are
only true in some possible worlds and false (or have no truth value,
depending on your view of vacuous truth) in others” (p. 41). N also
equivocates on ‘possible’, using both a gradable notion (cf. “less
possible”, “very possible”, p. 41) and a formal non-gradable one. He
later cashes out the loose gradable notion for that of the remoteness
of a possibility and pins the bill on Berto & Jago (2019). However,
although a “more remote possibility” might be less probable, surely it
isn’t “less possible” (p. 43). It is also somewhat of a mystery what
dialectical purpose this served, if any.
N approaches the notion of a possible language through S5 modal logic.
That’s the intuitive Leibnizian one with all the main axioms and
whistles. However, no further effort is made to argue for S5 over any
other modal logic. This is unusual for a purported work of
philosophical logic. That is, a work that, so to speak, doesn’t just
tell us about whistles, etc., but blows the right ones at the right
times and advocates for each usage to be considered appropriate.
The aim of Chapter 3, entitled “Syntactic Metatheory”, is to “identify
the core of syntactic explanation in theoretical linguistics, and to
trace this conception across distinct approaches” (p. 51). N sets out
a [BASIC] conception of syntactic theory comprising, roughly speaking,
[RULE-BOUND], rules for the formation of compounds and constituents,
[AoS], the independence and autonomy of syntax, and [RECURSION]. N
then shows how each of these definitions must be modified or respected
to accommodate modern minimalist and further approaches, including
even radical construction grammar, which he argues can be reconciled
with this picture. This is largely well executed. However, at one
point a defined name [RECURSION]′ is mentioned prior to its definition
on the following page (pp. 58–59).
Chapter 4 is entitled “The Science of Semantics”. N begins by
distinguishing between metasemantics-1 and metasemantics-2, before
proceeding only with the latter. Metasemantics-1 is “a grounding
project” that provides the nonsemantic facts in virtue of which a
semantic fact pertains (pp. 81–82). That is, a metaphysical project of
more or less depth. Metasemantics-2 is “the metascientific study of
the science of meaning” (p. 84), including:
“methodological issues such as whether semantic value is best modelled
as truth conditions, dynamic context-change potentials, or numerical
vectors representing collocational data, questions about the interface
between syntactic structure and semantic interpretation, and the
distinction between semantic and pragmatic information.” (p. 84)
N allows a role for metaphysics “only in so far as it investigates the
repercussions of scientific theory” (p. 84). He argues that the
resolution of metaphysical debates are “unattainable goals” (p. 85). N
here casts aside most of the history of philosophy in the space of two
or three pages. To my mind, such a position is far too deflationary,
if not anti-philosophical. The procedure of distinguishing two kinds
of metasemantics while ignoring their intersection and interaction is
not adequate philosophically or otherwise. Metaphysical questions
(never mind this or that metaphysical approach) cannot be wished away
or deferred by fiat; they are compulsory. For example, nothing in N’s
argument compels us to take “best”, in the question regarding how
semantic value is to be best modelled, in a methodological sense that
excludes metaphysical enquiry, nor should it.
N lists some work from the last 20 years that eschews truth conditions
in explanations of semantic phenomena (p. 94), but of course the
history is much longer than that. After all, Lewis’ oft-quoted remark,
“Semantics with no treatment of truth conditions is not semantics”
(Lewis 1970, p. 18; quoted at p. 82), was originally directed against
an early version of Katz’ theory employing semantic markers (Katz &
Postal 1964; see further references to Katz below, and Begley 2021,
pp. 318–20, for some discussion).
N discusses formal semantics, dynamic semantics, and distributional
semantics including vector-space representation. There is a curious
shift here at one point from speaking about representations of
meanings to speaking about meanings simpliciter, for example, “word
meaning is represented as a vector” to “Meaning is extracted from
patterns in corpora” (p. 97). Similarly, on the next page, very little
interrogation is provided of the statement “Meanings are mathematical
objects, in this case vectors” (p. 98). N says nothing here about what
he thinks a mathematical object is, and previously ‘vectors’ were
described as being representations. This is the kind of trouble we
invite when unconcerned by metaphysical matters. The things we call
‘vectors’ in computers, etc., are data structures, perhaps acting as
representations or surrogates for mathematical objects, which might
also be called ‘vectors’.
N also discusses what he calls “rogue semantics”, which involves
“violations of a particular interpretation of compositionality or the
syntax-semantics interface” (p. 99). For instance, he mentions some
views that go against the assumption that “words are semantically
basic in some sense” (p. 99). However, this is not as new a trend as N
makes out. Sub-word level decompositional semantics was famously
discussed as early as Katz and Fodor (1963) and developed further
especially by Katz (1972 & 1977), and prior to that in the form of
componential analysis (Goodenough 1956; Leech 1969). There is of
course an even longer philosophical history to the idea. I would have
expected some of that history to be at least mentioned here. N
recognises at least that “In another sense, lexical compositional
semantics is very conformist. In fact, it’s compositionality all the
way down!” (p. 102).
There is also a two-page discussion of “supersemantics”, that is, the
extension of formal semantics to nonlinguistic phenomena such as
“music semantics, dance semantics, primate grammar, gesture, and many
others” (p. 104). N merely urges caution here and suggests that a
“super-metasemantics” would be required to go along with it, but
without saying anything at all about what that would entail.
Chapter 5 is entitled “Context and Pragmatics”. N compares the problem
of the semantics-pragmatics distinction to demarcation in philosophy
of science. N draws upon Lewis, Grice, and Stalnaker’s work to outline
three “metapragmatic” possibilities, the indexicalist, cognitivist,
and the socio-inferential views, respectively.
Chapter 6 is entitled “Signs, Sounds, Action!”. N complains that
philosophers have paid phonology surprisingly little attention. In
response, N offers “only a sketch of an action-theoretic account of
phonology (and language) that takes both internal models and motor
systems into consideration” (p. 155).
Chapter 7 is entitled “Computational Approaches to Language”. N argues
that the priority of explanation over prediction in linguistics, and
science more generally, is a post-positivist overcorrection to the
positivists’ focus on prediction of behaviour. This is manifest, he
believes, in the ‘Galilean’ paradigm of explanation and the
competence-performance distinction.
“No matter how much performance data is amassed to contradict certain
rules or principles posited by the theory, a linguist can merely evoke
the distinction and relegate the recalcitrant data to performance
theory (presumably beyond the remit of a tractable linguistic
science)” (pp. 164–165).
N presents the early approach to quantum mechanics as a counterexample
to the claim that explanation is prioritised over data in science
generally (p. 166). However, the example is somewhat self-defeating as
that is only one way of thinking about the priority in this case. One
might nonetheless aim for the ideal of explanation and understanding,
although one temporarily settles for shutting up and calculating if
that is all one can do.
N also addresses the divide between discreet and continuous methods,
which encompasses “the central question” of the chapter, namely, “what
does [Deep Learning] have to offer theoretical linguistics?” (p. 171).
Unfortunately, N’s introduction to artificial neural networks and
machine learning contains infelicities, including in the sentence:
“The general process uses large numbers of computational units called
neural networks that take an input signal and feed it into a set of
input nodes (or neurons) represented as numerical values,
specifically, vectors” (p. 173). I take it this was meant to refer to
computational units called ‘neurons’, for which the input is a vector
(comprising a value for each node). N then quotes Linzen & Baroni
(2021, p. 196): “Each of these units [neurons] calculates a weighted
average of its inputs; this weighted average is then passed as an
input to a simple nonlinear function, such as the sigmoid.” There are
two issues with this. First, perhaps conflating it with a
McColloch-Pitts neuron, N adds that there will be a threshold at which
the node becomes active. However, sigmoids are precisely continuous
functions without any threshold. Second, Linzen & Baroni have made an
error; “weighted average” should say ‘weighted sum’. This is also
evident from the continuation of the passage: “In other words, the
function computed by each unit is σ(w1x1 +··· + wnxn)” (ibid., p. 196;
in the original, each w and x is followed by a subscript). N says that
a neural network “corrects itself based on the expected value of the
output. This is what’s known as backpropagation” (p. 173). This is
half the story. N doesn’t mention gradient descent. It is in fact
possible (albeit less probable) to do gradient descent without
backpropagation. Also, instead of ‘convolutional networks’, N refers
to “convoluted networks” (though they may well appear to be).
In his discussion of epistemic opacity, N expresses what I take to be
a ubiquitous misunderstanding of the black-box problem. N claims that
the problem is that “accessing their inner workings is sometimes
impossible” (p. 179). However, this is generally not a problem with
respect to a trained model. A printout can be given of all the
parameters, and thereby the matrix operations they constitute, for any
output of a model on any input. The problem is that we often lack an
explanation for the meaning of the output in terms of the domain from
which the data arose. N then makes another overused appeal, comparing
the lack of transparency in neural networks with that of our brains.
However, the situations are actually distinct. I can succeed verbally
in providing you with my reasons given in terms of the domain of
interest, but you can (currently) only image my brain and surmise its
activity. That is, you don’t get the printout of its parameters, so to
speak.
In Chapter 8, entitled “Language and Evolution”, N aims to “turn the
minimalist research agenda on its head with an alternative thesis:
natural language is a complex system and its emergence is likely to
have been prompted by multiple interacting factors” (p. 183). This he
calls the “Maximalist Programme”. He discusses the minimalist
hypothesis that the Merge operation arose from a single genetic macro
mutation around 100,000 years ago, and considers various counterclaims
suggesting a longer and more gradualist timeline that “opens us up to
the standard resources of evolutionary biology” (p. 187). N argues for
what he calls ‘systems biolinguistics’, which draws upon systems
biology and complexity science, and takes a holistic and
interdisciplinary approach (p. 193). He claims that “these
(graph-theoretic) tools aren’t merely instruments but tell us
something ontologically important” (p. 195). This is a strong claim,
which doesn’t get fully substantiated here.
EVALUATION
I have already made known some of my evaluations and disagreements
regarding specific points, and philosophical approaches, etc., though
it is likely that different readers will find challenging elements in
other areas of the book also. There is simply a lot covered in a short
space, which sometimes leads to a problem with pacing. The audience is
expected to be advanced or experienced, but sometimes the
introductions are basic and assume no prior knowledge, sometimes very
much is assumed (indeed, with lots of Further Reading suggested). So,
the book somewhat falls between two stools, neither being an
introductory textbook nor a cohesive advanced monograph. Another one
hundred pages might have been needed to rectify this, or some more
radical intervention, as there are presumably very few readers who are
experts in everything discussed.
One might be hopeful upon reading the introduction that the
privileging of an ordered list of questions would help to structure
and unite the whole, but this doesn’t really come to pass. Some
chapters have a clear line of argument pushed throughout, while others
seem merely to expound a number of approaches and the line is less
clear. While a few interconnections are made, the book lacks an
architectonic structure. That having been said, each chapter
considered on its own provides much food for thought. There is
something for everyone concerned whether they be linguist or
philosopher of whatever specialty or denomination, though they will
need to be open to much more to make it through the whole book.
REFERENCES
Begley, K. 2021. ‘Atomism and Semantics in the Philosophy of Jerrold
Katz’, In: U. Zilioli (ed.), Atomism in Philosophy: A History from
Antiquity to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic, 312–330.
https://www.doi.org/10.5040/9781350107526.0026
Begley, K. 2023. ‘Katz Got Your Tongue? The Metaphysics of Words’,
Topical Collection: The Philosophy of Words, Synthese 202(4), 107:
1–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04324-x
Berman, S. 2020. Platonism and the Objects of Science. Bloomsbury.
Berto, F., & Jago, M. 2019. Impossible Worlds. Oxford University
Press.
Devitt, M. 2013. “The ‘linguistic conception’ of grammars”. Filozofia
Nauki Rok XXI: 2(82).
Goodenough, W. H. 1956. ‘Componential analysis and the study of
meaning’. Language, 32, 195–216. https://doi.org/10.2307/410665
Katz, J. J. 1972. Semantic theory. Harper & Row.
Katz, J. J. 1977. Propositional Structure and Illocutionary Force. The
Harvester Press.
Katz, J. J. 1981. Language and other abstract objects. Rowman &
Littlefield.
Katz, J. J. 1990. The metaphysics of meaning. MIT press.
Katz, J. J. 1998. Realistic rationalism. MIT Press.
Katz, J. J. & Fodor, J. A. 1963. ‘The structure of a semantic theory’,
Language 39(2): 170–210.
Katz, J. J. & Postal, P. 1964. An Integrated Theory of Linguistic
Descriptions, M.I.T. Press.
Leech, G. N. 1969. Towards a Semantic Description of English.
Longmans, Green, and Co.
Lewis, D. 1970. ‘General semantics’. Synthese 22, 18–67.
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413598
Linzen, T., & Baroni, M. 2021. ‘Syntactic structure from deep
learning’. Annual Review of Linguistics 7: 195–212.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-032020-051035
Mumford, S., & Tugby, M. (eds) 2013. Metaphysics and Science. Oxford
University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199674527.001.0001
Politis, V. 2021. Plato’s Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of
Forms. Cambridge University Press.
Tugby, M. 2022. Putting Properties First: A Platonic Metaphysics for
Natural Modality. Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Keith Begley is an Honorary Associate of the Philosophy Department at
Durham University. He does research in philosophy of computer science
and artificial intelligence; philosophy of language and linguistics,
especially the work of Jerrold J. Katz; history of philosophy,
especially ancient (Heraclitus) and analytic philosophy
(Wittgenstein); and computational philology, applying computer
programs to parse ancient Greek texts. He holds an M.A. (Dubl.) and a
Ph.D. in philosophy from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), The University
of Dublin (2016), and a H.Dip. (2021) and an M.Sc. (2022) in computer
science from University College Dublin (UCD), The National University
of Ireland, Dublin. He has held positions including Teaching Fellow in
Philosophy at Durham University (2023/24); Assistant Lecturer in
Philosophy at Maynooth University (2022/23); Demonstrator in Computer
Science at UCD (2021/22); and Adjunct Assistant Professor of
Philosophy at TCD (2017–2020).



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