Table Of ContentEXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS
SSLS
STORY-SCIENTIA LINGUISTICS SERIE S
3
series editor
Didier L. GOYVAERTS
also available:
Vol. 1. D . L. GOYVAERTS and G. K. PULLUM (eds), Essays on the Sound
Pattern of English, 1975 , X + 580 pp.
Vol. 2. I . F. HANCOCK, E. POLOME, M. GOODMAN and B. HEINE (eds),
Readings in Creole Studies, 1979 , XIV + 352 pp.
in press:
Vol. 4. D . L. GOYVAERTS (ed.), Phonology in the 1980's, approx . 520 pp.
EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS
INTEGRATION OF THEORIES
AND APPLICATION S
Edited by
Gary D. Prideaux
Bruce L. Derwing
William J. Baker
University of Alberta
1980
E. STORY-SCIENTIA
SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHER S
GHENT/BELGIUM
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Experimental Linguistics : Integration of theories and applications / Edited by Gary D.
Prideaux, Bruce L. Derwing and William J. Baker.
p. cm. (Studies in the Sciences of Language Series ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Linguistics, Experimental. I. Prideaux, Gary Dean. II. Derwing, Bruce L. III. Baker,
William J.
P128.E94 E9 1980
410--dc22 81103930
isbn 978 90 6439 164 4 (Pb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7086 3 (Eb)
© 2013 – John Benjamins B.V.
Published 1980 by E. Story-Scientia, Ghent
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
CONTENTS
Introduction : Experimental linguistics in historical perspective.
B. L. Derwing, G. D. Prideaux and W. J. Baker 1
PART I : THEORETICA L BASE S FO R EXPERIMENTA L
LINGUISTICS (editoria l introduction )
1. On paraphrase .
Paul Fletche r 2 1
2. Wha t is structural ambiguity ?
P. G. Patel 35
3. O n theories of focus.
Christine M. Andrew 5 5
4. Preliminarie s to the experimental investigation of style in language.
Mary Loi s Marckworth 6 5
5. Englis h pluralization: A testing ground for rule evaluation.
Bruce L. Derwing 8 1
PART II : EXPERIMENTA L RESULT S (editoria l introduction )
1. Grammatica l properties of sentences as a basis for concept
formation.
Wm. J. Baker, Gary D. Prideaux and Bruce L. Derwing 12 1
2. Grammatica l voic e and illocutionary meanin g in an aural concep t
formation task .
J. Raymond Reid 14 1
3. Grammatica l simplicity or performative efficiency ?
Wm. J. Baker and Gary D. Prideaux. 15 7
4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness.
Gary D . Prideaux and Wm. J. Baker 17 5
5. Paraphras e relationships among clefted sentences .
Paul Fletcher 18 5
6. Th e recognition of ambiguity.
Gary D . Prideaux and Wm. J. Baker 20 3
7. A n experimental investigation of focus.
Christine M. Andrew 21 5
8. A discriminant function analysi s of co-variation of a number
of syntactic devices in five prose genres.
Mary Loi s Marckworth and Wm. J. Baker 23 1
9. Rul e learning and the English inflections (with special emphasis
on the plural).
Bruce L. Derwing and Wm. J. Baker 24 7
10. Perceptua l dimensions of phonemic recognition.
John C. L. Ingram 27 3
Epilogue: An "information structure " view of language.
Wm. J. Baker 29 3
Bibliography 30 9
INTRODUCTION
EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS IN
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIV E
B.L. DERWING, G.D. PRIDEAUX, W.J. BAKER
Meaning is what language is all about. If "thought transference" were possible,
man would have no need of language, but could communicate his thoughts to
others by more direct and efficient means. But in this real world, as it happens,
if we wish to divulge our thoughts to anyone else, we are forced to learn how to
"encode" these thoughts into a form more readily transferable from one person
to anothe r (e.g. , acousti c waves , orthographi c symbols , Mors e code , sig n
language, gestures and facial expressions, etc.); likewise, if we desire to catch
even a small glimpse of anyone else's mental world, we must also learn how to
"decode" the linguistic message s which that person deigns to send our way.
For reason s which are largely historical, it is quite natural, of course, for the
linguist t o focus hi s main attentio n o n the language cod e itself, i.e., on the
system of formal devices which are employed in various societies for the pur-
pose o f communicatin g idea s fro m on e individua l t o another . A seriou s
problem arises , however, if this focus o f attention become s a n all-exclusive
preoccupation; fo r languag e itsel f i s merel y a tool, whic h ca n onl y b e
understood b y takin g prope r cognizanc e o f it s essentia l functio n an d
psychological motivation .
Contemporary linguistic s ha s tended t o regar d languag e an d linguisti c
structure a s somethin g existin g "ou t there" somewher e an d availabl e fo r
fruitful, scientifi c investigatio n independentl y o f the study of the psychology
and physiology of the language user. This is precisely the same sort of orienta-
tion to language which Jespersen had observed and against which he inveighed
so vigorously in 1924, when he opened his book, The Philosophy of Grammar,
with the following remarks :
The essence of language is human activity—activity on the part of one individual to
make himself understood by another, and activity on the part of that other to understand
what was in the mind of the first. These two individuals, the producer and the recipient of
language, or as we may more conveniently call them, the speaker and the hearer, and their
relations to one another, should never be lost sight of if we want to understand the nature
of language and of that part of language which is dealt with in grammar. Bu t in former
times this was often overlooked, and words and forms were often treated as if they were
things or natural objects with an existence of their own —a conceptio n which may have
been to a great extent fostered through a too exclusive preoccupation with written and
printed words, but which is fundamentally false, as will easily be seen with a little reflexion
(Jespersen, 1924, p. 17; italics added).
Despite thi s warning , the "former times " of which Jespersen spoke wer e
soon to reimpose themselves upon linguistics with a vengeance, particularly in
North America . Leonard Bloomfield was the Thomas Jefferson of the moment
and declared the independence of linguistics most emphatically and explicitly
in this century: "In the division of scientific labor," he said, "the linguist deals
only wit h the speec h signal... ; he is not competent t o deal with problems of
physiology o r psychology" (1933, p. 32). Thus the umbilical link was severed
between the fledgling linguis t and his natural progenitors. Linguistics became
"autonomous" b y decree and nobody really seemed to care.1 Relieved of the
burden of accountability to the parental disciplines, linguists were now free to
concentrate thei r full attentio n on the thing that interested them most: those
wonderful an d fascinatin g languag e forms whic h speaker s i n various com -
munities synthesize d i n s o many differen t an d unexpecte d ways , yet alway s
with coherenc e an d patter n an d a n intriguin g systematicky. Linguists wer e
enticed int o th e trad e fo r on e chie f reason , abov e all : "Languages offe r a
fascinating puzzle ; it's fun to examine them and compare them, more fun than
math, even , becaus e it' s mor e surprising " (Householder , 1971 , p . 1).
Linguistics wa s autonomous , s o wh o care s abou t cartileg e o r muscle s o r
nerves, o r drive s o r motive s o r emotiona l states , o r questionnaire s o r
experimental desig n o r analysi s o f variance? Jus t giv e us language, give us
some utterance forms, give us something we can really sink our teeth into and
enjoy. But , above all, just leave us alone and let us do our own thing.
The season of riotous living which followed was a happy time for everybody
in the field. Yet amidst al l the fun, a number o f ver y interestin g discoverie s
were als o made. Utterances in a host of languages were carefully catalogue d
and scrutinize d from nearly every angle by an assortment of techniques which
came eventuall y t o b e know n a s "th e logi c o f distributiona l analysis " (cf.
Harris, 1951) . The sound s o f speech wer e not onl y isolate d an d tentativel y
identified, an d they were also found t o occur in on e set of phonetic environ-
ments i n one language, but to have quite different privilege s of occurrence in
another; an d som e speec h sound s distinguishe d word s i n a language whil e
1 Wher e St. Clair (1975) speaks of a "forced marriage" between psychology and linguistics,
we see instead a hasty and groundless separation which, for the benefit of all parties concerned,
ought to be patched up without further delay.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIV E ə
others did not, and these specifics, too, varied considerably from languag e to
language. O n this basis the concept o f the phoneme an d it s allophones wa s
nurtured an d developed. Further inspection of utterance samples revealed that
certain sequences of phonemes were meaningful and tended to cluster together,
but that the same sequence was not always used to express the same meaning.2
From thes e observation s th e concep t o f th e morphem e an d it s allomorph s
came into being. It was also observed that these morphological units, too, had
their ow n distributiona l characteristic s an d thi s le d t o th e concep t o f th e
lexical class (which is simply the modern-day analogue of the traditional "part
of speech" ) an d eventuall y to the phrase, the clause, and the sentence type,
when th e lexical classes were also found to exhibit definable patterns of dis-
tribution. Thus linguistic analysis proceeded up and up a hierarchy of pattern
upon pattern, from one "level" of linguistic structure to another.
In the meantime, other linguists began to observe new kinds of regularities
which eve n cu t acros s thes e distributionall y define d classes . Allophones o f
different phoneme s exhibited common pattern s of distribution, too. Not onl y
did the English /р/ have an aspirated variant in syllable-initial position before a
stressed vowel , for example, but so did the English /t/ and /č/ and /к/. Thus a
general "allophoni c rule " coul d b e economicall y formulated : th e voiceles s
stops o f Englis h ar e al l aspirate d i n th e environmen t indicated . Likewise ,
allomorphs o f different morpheme s wer e found t o vary i n systematic ways .
From a phonemic standpoint, the past tense form of the verb sit, namely, sat,
differed fro m it s present tens e form i n just th e same way that sang differe d
from sing an d swam fro m swim, etc . This fact could then be described a s a
"morphophonemic rule " which wa s share d b y a restricted lis t of particula r
verbs: change the /I/ vowel of the stem to /æ/ in order to form the past tense.
Much the same kind of thing was found to be true of larger lexical classes and
sentence types, as well, and from this arose the concept of the "syntactic rule,"
to complete the picture.
A "linguistic rule, " in short, was a statement whic h expressed som e par -
ticular regularity whic h the analyst ha d observe d to occur i n the sample of
utterance tokens available to him from some language, and a "linguistic struc-
ture" was defined, in general, as a distributional pattern whic h this sample had
revealed t o him; the sum total of such regularities an d patterns constituted ,
then, the full "linguistic system" of the language involved.
When Chomsk y burs t upo n th e linguisti c scen e i n th e lat e 1950's , h e
vigorously attacked this approach to language analysis as excessively "restric-
2 A n orthodox distributionalist, of course, would have eschewed the reference to "meaning" in
this characterization and would have attempted to pursue the hopeless task of reformulating it in
purely distributional terms.
tive" and "taxonomic" in character. The thinking of the scientist ought not ,
said Chomsky, to be confined to those meager patterns and regularities which
he can educe from hi s data, but he ought rather to be free to invent ne w pat-
terns and impose ne w regularities upon these data in order to achieve a more
comprehensive an d "insightful" systematizatio n fo r them. Using mostly ra w
materials borrowed from the old theories, plus a few vital, new ingredients of
his ow n invention , Chomsk y the n proceede d t o construct a new descriptiv e
framework fo r languag e an d to embellish i t with suc h painstakin g car e fo r
detail an d wit h suc h ingenuit y o f statemen t tha t fe w linguist s were abl e t o
resist hi s program fo r long . He propose d a descriptive syste m fo r languag e
which was , first o f all , sufficiently explicit tha t it s redundancies, gap s an d
defects wer e a t leas t "relativel y eas y t o detect " (Householder , 1971 , p. xi).
Even further , b y redefinin g Harris ' notio n o f the "grammatical transforma -
tion" in more powerful an d abstract terms, and by pushing every regularity to
its ultimat e limit s throug h suc h powerfu l descriptiv e device s a s language -
specific rule ordering, Chomsky was also able to achieve a kind of descriptive
economy fa r beyond anything ever imagined previously. One thing, however,
Chomsky di d not change: like the Bloomfieldian structuralist s before him, the
primary object of Chomsky's attention was still linguistic forms (plu s a select
few kinds of native speaker judgements or "intuitions" about these forms). In
other words, despite the much-acclaimed shift from an inductive to a deductive
mode of inquiry, the "primary data" of linguistics was not that much differen t
after Chomsky than it was before him.
Chomsky did, however, attempt also to impose upon linguistics a "scientific
conscience," i f you will, in that he seemed to want to lure the field back int o
the psychologica l fold . Th e rea l goa l o f linguistics , h e said , shoul d no t b e
simply to describe th e form of utterances, but rather to explain them . In par-
ticular, h e continued , w e nee d t o explai n thei r "recursive " o r open-ende d
character, sinc e it is this "creative" aspect of language which is, after all , its
most "essentia l characteristic " (1964, p. 51). Here Chomsky revive d an ide a
which ha d lai n prett y muc h dorman t eve r sinc e th e tim e o f th e origina l
Bloomfieldian declaration , tha t is , all durin g tha t shor t perio d o f som e 2 5
years when psychologizing was shunned in linguistics and interest was focused
on looking at a variety of languages and the formal differences between them.
But th e notio n o f linguistic creativit y ha d bee n ver y muc h aliv e in the lat e
nineteenth century , for example , when Herman n Paul , the famous neogram -
marian, ha d lamente d th e ver y sam e oversigh t i n th e thinkin g o f hi s
predecessors:
One of the fundamental errors of the old science of language was to deal with all human
utterances ... as if with something merely reproduced by memory ... True it is that W. v.
