Re: linguistic dogma

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2 total messages Started by Michael Hand Sun, 07 Aug 1994 03:36

#3071

Author: Michael Hand
Date: Sun, 07 Aug 1994 03:36

17 lines
1623 bytes

Jacques Guy <jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au> wrote:
  > So there you are. Reject the data that contradicts the theory. Even
  > better: fabricate data to prop up the theory (the rat that the cat 
  > that the dog chased caught squealed).

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?
==================================================================
        Capitalism and the wage system must be abolished; they are
          twin monsters which are eating up the life of the world.
					       -- Bertrand Russell
==================================================================
Michael Hand                      (409)845-5660, fax (409)845-0458
Philosophy Dept, Texas A&M Univ, College Station TX 77843-4237 USA
hand@tam2000.tamu.edu                               mhand@tamu.edu

Re: linguistic dogma

#3072

Author: Mark Line
Date: Sun, 07 Aug 1994 12:08

27 lines
1937 bytes

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

>Jacques Guy <jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au> wrote:
>  > So there you are. Reject the data that contradicts the theory. Even
>  > better: fabricate data to prop up the theory (the rat that the cat 
>  > that the dog chased caught squealed).

>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.

-- Mark

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