🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan8.002157.20841@leland.Stanford.EDU> alderson@cisco.com (Rich Alderson) writes:

[omitting several sage definitions (not to disparage this one)]

	There are a number of ways to divvy up the field of linguistics.  One
	major division is that between synchronic and diachronic studies
	(Saussure 1916).  This is a distinction between the study of speech in
	a single time-frame versus the study of speech across time-frames.

That's one dimension.

	Across this dichotomy is a breakdown by special area of interest:

Phonetics to pragmatics -- that's the second dimension.

	The synchronic side is generally referred to as "theoretical" linguis-
	tics, although there are theories on the diachronic side as well.  This
	group of studies is susceptible of investigation by experimentation,
	either instrumented (as, for example, acoustic phonetics) or introspec-
	tive (as, for example, acceptability judgments in syntax).

	The diachronic side--the study of languages in a temporal dimension--
	uses the results garnered by "theoretical" linguistics, but in addition
	uses methodologies similar to those of other *historical* studies,
	methodologies which simply do not admit of mathematical manipulation.

You may want to consider a third dimension of labelling, instead of
just using the "theoretical" label.  That is, the dimension of 'pure'
linguistics versus psycho-, socio-, neuro-, mathematical, and
computational linguistics (along with other hyphenated variations
which I have neglected.)  Thus, we are able to give a label to such
sub-fields as diachronic socio-phonology, for example.

Along this dimension we might want to include 'theoretical'
linguistics, although the term 'theoretical' is used in a somewhat
unexpected way in linguistics, in comparaison to other sciences. In
physics, say, a theoretical physicists is usually occupied with
comparing different theories and their structures -- as if one were
comparing GB to LFG, for instance, or discussing the abstract
properties of some formalism.  However, this activity is usually
considered mathematical linguistics or formal language theory by
linguists, who reserve the term theoretical linguistics for activities
which are really more concerned with accounting for experimental or
observational data within a formalism.  I don't want to imply that
that's a bad thing, or that we linguists should change our usages to
conform with other fields, but I just wanted to bring it up.

--
John O'Neil
"Occasionally I believed I had thoughts of my own --  who does not now
 and then become the victim of such delusions?"
						-- Paul Feyerabend