Cross-linguistic generalizations (p. 48) [via PaperHive@docloop]

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cross-linguistic generalizations

Remi van Trijp wrote:

If you assume that there is no universal grammar, cross-linguistic generalizations are interesting only from a theoretical perspective, but can't be used as an argument for the existence of a certain rule/construction in a particular language. I think it would be helpful if you can elaborate here or somewhere else exactly what you assume to be shared across languages, and what you assume to be acquired.

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Stefan Müller wrote:

Yes, I argued this extensively in my CoreGram paper (also cited by Goldberg 2013). Grammars of individual languages have to be acquirable on a language specific basis. A child learning German does not have evidence about Basque. So it cannot learn that there is an AgrO projection. But nevertheless languages have things in common and as a scientist who wants to find out what language is I want my theories to represent the commonalities. I guess this is standard scientific practice. If there are generalizations they should be captured somewhere. The theory that does good grammars for individual languages and captures generalizations on top of this is to be preferred. Since phrasal and lexical approaches are translatable into each other (to some extent), the argument is: We should use the lexical variant since this also captures the phenomena in a way that allows us to capture generalization. Of course there are the cases where the approaches are not translatable and they are strong evidence for dropping the phrasal approach but on top of this there are also further arguments for the lexical approach since the lexical approach keeps things like SVO and SOV separate from valence and hence gets the generalizations. Goldberg, Adele E. 2013. Explanation and Constructions: Response to Adger. Mind and Language 28(4). 479–491. DOI:10.1111/mila.12028. Müller, Stefan. 2015. The CoreGram Project: Theoretical Linguistics, Theory Development and Verification. Journal of Language Modelling 3(1). 21–86. DOI:10.15398/jlm.v3i1.91.

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Remi van Trijp wrote:

I agree that as a linguist, you should be interested in those things. What I was getting at is the question of whether your grammar has the ambition of cognitive plausibility, or whether your goal is rather to provide a concise theoretical description.

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Stefan Müller wrote:

A concise theoretical description with cognitive plausibility.

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