🚀 go-pugleaf

hand@tam2000.tamu.edu (Michael Hand) writes:

>Mark Line <markline@henson.cc.wwu.edu> wrote:
> > > Huh?  Center-embedding produces intuitively *unacceptable* sentences 
> > > pretty fast, as your example shows.  Its unacceptability is a datum.
> > > Nonetheless, it is as grammatical as all get-out.  What's been 
> > > "fabricated" here?
> >
> > How do you know it's "grammatical" if it's "unacceptable"? Unless of
> > course you create a grammar by fiat and then state, wholesale, that
> > sentences which fit that grammar are "grammatical" _by definition_,
> > whether they are "acceptable" or not. That, however, wouldn't buy you
> > anything, since you then have no way of empirically falsifying your
> > grammar.

>Slow down.  First, you've presented a false dilemma.  The mere fact
>that we distinguish acceptability from grammaticality doesn't mean 
>that the grammar is a matter of fiat.  The relation of acceptability 
>to grammaticality is itself a theoretical matter, as it ought to be.
>The issue is complicated, involving among other things the whole
>competence/performance distinction.

Fine. How do you distinguish empirically between competence and
performance? Unless, of course, you mean "Philosophy of Language" when
you say "Theory". 

>   Second, the mere fact that we distinguish acceptability from 
>grammaticality doesn't mean the grammar isn't empirically falsi-
>fiable.  If acceptability diverges from grammaticality and there
>is no explanation, there are gonna be problems.

You're avoiding my question. How do you judge grammaticality
empirically such that it _can_ diverge from acceptability? The only
ways I can see all succumb to circularity (we write a grammar to
generate only the grammatical sentences; we know a sentence is
grammatical (whether it is acceptable or not) because it is generated
by the grammar).

>In the center-
>embedding case, there's a natural and obvious explanation: it's
>hard to process the damn things, so despite their grammaticality,
>they're objectionable (in a wider sense than just *grammatically*
>objectionable).

Your so stating does not make it empirically true. How do you
demonstrate _empirically_ that center-embedded sentences are
grammatical? Please don't tell me it's because they're generated by
the grammar.

-- Mark

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Mark P. Line                       Phone: +1-206-733-6040
Open Pathways                        Fax: +1-206-733-6040
P.O. Box F                         Email: markline@henson.cc.wwu.edu
Bellingham, WA 98227-0296
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