Spring, 2013 Colloquium 9
※ 國立清華大學語言所101學年度第二學期專題演講九 ※
演講者：Colin Phillips (University of Maryland)
演講題目：What is a mental grammar?
時間：2013 年 5 月 29 日(星期三) 中午 12 時 30 分
地點：清大人社院 C310 室
Web：http://ter.ps/phillips
講題摘要：
Standard generative grammars describe language in terms that appear distant from considerations of everyday, real-time language processes. To some this is a critical flaw, while to others this is a clear virtue. Generative grammars are typically framed as theories of speakers’ task-independent knowledge of their language, and these are understood to be distinct from theories of how specific communicative tasks might put that knowledge to use. Set against this background are a number of recent proposals that various linguistic phenomena can be better understood in terms of grammars that incrementally assemble structures in (roughly) the same left-to-right order found in language use. One can evaluate these proposals based simply on standard considerations of 'descriptive adequacy'. But it is also natural to ask how left-to-right derivations impact the psychological commitments of grammatical theories. Are they procedural descriptions of how speakers put together sentences in real time (either in comprehension or in production)? Do they amount to a retreat from linguists’ traditional agnosticism about ‘performance mechanisms’? These are questions about what a grammatical theory is a theory of, and they are the proverbial elephant in the room in discussions of derivational order in syntax, although the issues have not been explored in much detail. In this talk I will summarize the current state of some of the evidence for and against grammars as models of real-time processes, drawing on a variety of findings by our group and others.
演講者：Colin Phillips (University of Maryland)
演講題目：What is a mental grammar?
時間：2013 年 5 月 29 日(星期三) 中午 12 時 30 分
地點：清大人社院 C310 室
Web：http://ter.ps/phillips
講題摘要：
Standard generative grammars describe language in terms that appear distant from considerations of everyday, real-time language processes. To some this is a critical flaw, while to others this is a clear virtue. Generative grammars are typically framed as theories of speakers’ task-independent knowledge of their language, and these are understood to be distinct from theories of how specific communicative tasks might put that knowledge to use. Set against this background are a number of recent proposals that various linguistic phenomena can be better understood in terms of grammars that incrementally assemble structures in (roughly) the same left-to-right order found in language use. One can evaluate these proposals based simply on standard considerations of 'descriptive adequacy'. But it is also natural to ask how left-to-right derivations impact the psychological commitments of grammatical theories. Are they procedural descriptions of how speakers put together sentences in real time (either in comprehension or in production)? Do they amount to a retreat from linguists’ traditional agnosticism about ‘performance mechanisms’? These are questions about what a grammatical theory is a theory of, and they are the proverbial elephant in the room in discussions of derivational order in syntax, although the issues have not been explored in much detail. In this talk I will summarize the current state of some of the evidence for and against grammars as models of real-time processes, drawing on a variety of findings by our group and others.