The Evidential Basis of Linguistic Argumentation

328 Pages·2014·3.35 MB·English

by  András Kertész

The Evidential Basis of Linguistic Argumentation
Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)
This series has been established as a companion series to the periodical
Studies in Language.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
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Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Arizona State University
University of Munich
Editorial Board
Bernard Comrie Christian Lehmann
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig University of Erfurt
and University of California, Santa Barbara
Marianne Mithun
William Croft University of California, Santa Barbara
University of New Mexico
Heiko Narrog
Östen Dahl Tohuku University
University of Stockholm
Johanna L. Wood
Gerrit J. Dimmendaal University of Aarhus
University of Cologne
Debra Ziegeler
Ekkehard König University of Paris III
Free University of Berlin
Volume 153
The Evidential Basis of Linguistic Argumentation
Edited by András Kertész and Csilla Rákosi
The Evidential Basis
of Linguistic Argumentation
Edited by
András Kertész
University of Debrecen,
and MTA-DE Research Group for Theoretical Linguistics
Csilla Rákosi
MTA-DE Research Group for Theoretical Linguistics
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
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
The evidential basis of linguistic argumentation / Edited by András Kertész, Csilla Rákosi.
p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 153)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Linguistic models--Data processing. 2. Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) 3. Linguistics--
Research--Methodology. 4. Corpora (Linguistics) 5. Computational linguistics.
I. Kertész, András, editor of compilation. II. Rákosi, Csilla, editor of compilation.
P128.M6E95 2014
410.1--dc23 2013048427
isbn 978 90 272 5918 9 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 7055 9 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
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
Table of contents
Chapter 1.
Introduction: The state of the art and the structure of the book 1
András Kertész & Csilla Rákosi
part i. The methodological framework
Chapter 2.
The p-model of data and evidence in linguistics 15
András Kertész & Csilla Rákosi
part ii. Object-theoretical applications
Chapter 3.
The plausibility of approaches to syntactic alternation of Hungarian verbs 51
Károly Bibok
Chapter 4.
Methods and argumentation in historical linguistics: A case study 71
Katalin Nagy C.
Chapter 5.
Hungarian verbs of natural phenomena with explicit and implicit subject
arguments: Their use and occurrence in the light of data 103
Enikő Németh T.
Chapter 6.
The development of a taxonomy of verbal disagreements
in the light of the p-model 133
Helga Vanda Koczogh
Chapter 7.
A case of disagreement: On plural reduplicating particles in Hungarian 179
György Rákosi
Chapter 8.
A plausibility-based model of shifted indexicals 199
Zoltán Vecsey
i The Evidential Basis of Linguistic Argumentation
part iii. Metatheoretical applications
Chapter 9.
Thought experiments and real experiments as converging data sources
in pragmatics 221
András Kertész & Csilla Rákosi
Chapter 10.
Data and the resolution of inconsistency in Optimality Theory 271
Csilla Rákosi
Chapter 11.
Conclusions 309
András Kertész & Csilla Rákosi
Author index 315
Subject index 317
chapter 1
Introduction
The state of the art and the structure of the book
András Kertész1, 2 & Csilla Rákosi2
1University of Debrecen, Institute of German Studies,
2MTA-DE Research Group for Theoretical Linguistics
1. The aim of the volume
One of the major driving forces in the development of linguistics has been the
quest for its empirical foundations. For example, a prominent historian of linguis-
tics characterises the essence of this development as follows:
Modern theoretical linguistics cannot be understood if its struggle for scientific
status is not placed at the centre of its history. The main problem in this quest for
scientific status has always been that of empirical access, that is, some notion of
what constitutes reliable data, the formulation of one or more causal questions,
and some success at answering these questions by means of an explanatory
theory. (Seuren 1998: 140; bold emphasis added, italics as in the original)
Throughout the history of linguistics, the problem of empiricalness has manifested
itself in a complex network of methodological debates. Currently, the debate focuses
on the question of what kinds of data are allowed in different linguistic theories and
what subtypes of data can work as evidence for or against particular hypotheses.
Kertész & Rákosi (2012) contributed to this debate by putting forward a metatheo-
retical solution to this problem: the p-model of linguistic data and evidence which
conceives of linguistic theorising as a process of plausible argumentation.
The aim of the present volume is to show how the p-model can be applied to the
everyday problem-solving practice of the working linguist, and, what is of utmost
importance, how it can increase the effectiveness of linguistic theorising.
2. On the state of the art
From the seventies on, there have been two interrelated sets of methodological
assumptions which have been accepted by the overwhelming majority of linguists
2 András Kertész & Csilla Rákosi
from generativists to corpus linguists. The first set of assumptions is what we will
call the standard view of linguistic data and evidence and which we summarise as
follows:1
According to the standard view, the empiricalness of linguistic theories
depends crucially on the use of the appropriate data type. This means that the
origin of data is decisive: according to generativists, introspection is a reliable data
source, while corpus linguists are of the opinion that corpora are the only legiti-
mate data sources. There is general agreement on the view that the treatment of
data does not require special attention, because their handling can be sufficiently
controlled with the help of a few simple, general methodological rules.
The standard view of linguistic data and evidence was for the most part
shaped by a second set of assumptions, namely, the standard view of the analytical
philosophy of science.2 A central idea of the latter was that empirical theories must
consist of statements which can be tested on the basis of a particular subset of data,
namely, evidence. It is the requirement that evidence has to be directly control-
lable, thus objective and totally reliable that lies at the core of the interpretation of
the concept ‘evidence’. From these features it follows that evidence was supposed
to be capable of justifying the hypotheses of theories and providing a firm base for
the decision between rival theories.
From the second half of the nineties onwards, there was a turn in the meth-
odological debates on data and evidence in linguistics: a series of collections of
papers and conferences tackled aspects of linguistic theorising that had been
neglected and had previously remained unreflected.3 The quotation below illus-
trates the problem that has recently been in the focus of interest:
[…] there is a growing awareness among formal linguists that a sole reliance on
introspective data […] will no longer do. Not only should speakers’ intuitions be
collected in a systematic way, but also should the database of linguistic theories be
broadened as to include types of data that well go beyond introspective data as the
primary data of linguistic theorizing (such as e.g. psycholinguistic and historical
1. See Kertész & Rákosi (2008a, b, 2012) for detailed overviews.
2. A recent textbook characterises the standard view of the analytical philosophy of science
as follows: “The two philosophies, logical postivism and Popper’s falsificationism, are usually
taken together as forming what is known as the classical tradition. Sometimes the term
‘ positivism’ is used. At other times, it is called the standard or the orthodox view. These latter
expressions are apt.” (Hung 2014: 311)
3. See, among others, Schütze (1996), Borsley (ed.) (2005), Lehmann (2004), Kallmeyer &
Zifonun (eds) (2007), Kepser & Reis (eds) (2005), Kristiansen et al. (eds) (2006), Penke &
Rosenbach (eds) (2004, 2007), Stefanowitsch & Gries (eds) (2007), Sternefeld (ed.) (2007),
Featherston & Winkler (eds) (2009), Winkler & Featherston (eds) (2009).
Introduction 3
evidence). This recent concern of formal linguistic theory is reflected in other
conferences/workshops more or less explicitly touching on the issue of linguistic
evidence as well […].
The topic as such is huge. Not only does it touch on the database of linguistic
theories but also, inevitably, on methodological issues (evidence, of whatever type,
is only as good as the methodology by which it has been ascertained).
(Penke & Rosenbach 2007: vii; emphasis added)
Against this background, raising questions regarding the useable types of data/
evidence and their treatment in linguistic theories are well-motivated method-
ological issues. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why it is extremely difficult
to answer such questions. One reason is that linguistics is not a homogeneous
discipline. Thus, both the diversity and the common aspects of the treatment of
linguistic data and evidence have to be accounted for. Another reason is that the
object of linguistic research is not directly available for the linguist, but has to
be reconstructed from the directly accessible manifestations of the knowledge of
language (see e.g. Kepser & Reis 2005: 1). Therefore, theoretical tools for the repre-
sentation and treatment of the indirectness and the uncertainty of linguistic data
resulting from them are needed, too.
Against these fundamental difficulties, it is understandable that the first
attempts in the current literature to solve methodological problems about linguis-
tic data and evidence are double-faced. On the one hand, contemporary views still
contain elements originating from the standard view of the analytical philosophy
of science. For instance, linguistic evidence is still interpreted as a specific subset of
data which are true with certainty and whose main task is to test (verify, confirm or
falsify) the hypotheses of the theory. On the other hand, the very same views have
aspects which are no longer compatible with the standard view of the analytical
philosophy of science and the standard view of linguistic data and evidence, and
which indicate the need to break with these norms. Every important characteristic
of the concept of evidence adapted from the analytical philosophy of science has
been questioned, and the new proposals raise a series of innovative ideas.4 These
progressive insights are, however, not acknowledged by all authors; and even if
they are accepted by several of them, they are accepted in different forms, so they
cannot be generalised. The most important new insights are the following:
– The database of linguistic research cannot be reduced to introspective data vs.
corpus data, but a wide variety of different data types is accepted and deemed
legitimate.
. See Kertész & Rákosi (2008a, b, 2012) for detailed overviews.