Re: Non-explanations

Jim Grossmann sikayal:

> To be honest, I hadn't thought explanation this clearly, but now that you
> mention it, your point seems sound.   If a given linguistic theory
> delineated all and only features of natural human languages, and
> successfully predicted the constraints on newly discovered natural human
> languages,
> I suppose the theory would be a good one.   (At least, I think so.)
This is exactly what the Principles and Parameters (PP) theory of
Universal Grammar claims to do, though with varying degrees of success.
PP theory gives a set of possible forms for phrase structure rules
(actually one highly abstract form), and then a series of parameters which
determine how those phrase structure rules are actually interpreted.
Under PP theory languages differ only in their lexicons and the settings
for the various parameters.

I personally think that PP is a wonderful theory, at least in its
underlying assumptions.  The form that the theory has taken so far isn't
yet satisfactory, but they seem to be moving in the right direction and
some really good ideas have been proposed.  The theory does exactly
what a good theory should--it accounts for (almost) all of the relevant
data, and predicts that all languages will share some features and no
languages will have other features.  I'm sure others on the list feel
differently, though.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

Replies