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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that A fixed ordinal scale does not suffice for recording linguistic acceptability judgments.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Ordinal scales suffice when the research goal is categorical discrimination rather than magnitude estimation of acceptability differences.
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    • 2.Chomsky's original competence/performance distinction treats grammaticality as binary, making gradient measurement a category error for core linguistic theory.
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    • 3.Empirical adequacy of a measurement scale is relative to the theoretical construct being measured, not an intrinsic property of the scale itself.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Stevens' psychophysical scaling research shows that human judgment reliability degrades with scale complexity, making finer-grained scales less accurate, not more.
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    • 2.The apparent inadequacy of fixed ordinal scales reflects experimenter design failures—anchor calibration and item ordering—rather than intrinsic scale limitations.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.There may be a disproportion between the fineness of judgments people can make and the symbol set available for recording them on a fixed scale.
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    • 2.Interval scales capture relative distances between judgments that fixed ordinal scales cannot represent.
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