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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The generative linguist response that no evidence beyond grammaticality judgments is needed is unsatisfactory.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Grammaticality judgments elicited from native speakers are inherently unreliable due to unavoidable meta-cognitive overtones.
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    • 2.Grammaticality judgments are invariably used to adjudicate between variants of current generative theory, never to test its foundational assumptions.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation shows that behavioral data alone underdetermines linguistic theory, requiring independent empirical constraints.
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    • 2.If grammaticality judgments are the sole evidence, rival grammars making identical predictions cannot be empirically distinguished, violating basic scientific methodology.
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    • 3.Neurolinguistic data (e.g., ERP studies on syntactic violations) routinely diverges from native speaker judgments, demonstrating judgments are insufficient as sole arbiters.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Chomsky's own competence/performance distinction concedes that judgments reflect performance systems, not pure grammatical competence, undermining their privileged evidential status.
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    • 2.If judgments index performance rather than competence, generativists cannot coherently invoke them as direct evidence for I-language without additional bridging theory.
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