Re: THEORY: OT Syntax (Was: Re: THEORY: phonemes and Optimality Theory tutorial)

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> >Oddness!  Are brainwave patterns used to corroborate other kinds of
> >findings?  Is this a common way of researching things in linguistics, or...?
>
> The neurological activity associated with language is an active area of
> research among linguists. One of my best friends is writing her Master's
> thesis on some topic in lateralization in children's brains. Generally
> speaking, however, this kind of research does not corroborate linguistic
> theories. Mainly because what neurolinguists and psycholinguists study are
> not directly relevant to syntactic and phonological theories. Some
> interesting things have been found, none-the-less.
[snip]

And I thought I'd never be interested in neurobiology.  I sometimes
regret not paying more attention to HS biology.  (I declined to take IBH
biology after seeing what a lab practical was like...)  Foundations are
good to have.  <sigh>

> Take a sentence like "The man admired Don's sketch of the landscape."  You
> cannot say *"The man admired Don's of sketch the landscape". This type of
> ungrammaticality is what syntacticians have been calling a "Phrase
> Structure Violation" for decades. Now, if you attach electrodes to a
Stupid question: so there are analogously ungrammatical sentences in
other languages, or perhaps better stated, there *isn't* a language in
which a construction like the starred one above *is* grammatical?

> There are a few other cases like this. Without going into what they are,
> there is brainwave evidence for Subjacency, thematic selection, and
> specificity conditions. Even more interesting: syntacticians claim all
> three (four, counting the phrase structure violation above) of these things
> are separate entities, and the brain's reaction to each is completely
> different as well, suggesting that they are indeed distinct, identifiable
> processes. I believe there is similar work on phonology as well, but (I'm
> ashamed to admit) I paid less attention to those parts of the articles.
I must learn more about syntax after I find out more about
phonology/phonetics.  :-)  I'll have to check out the Gray Wizard's list
of recommended books.  Cornell U.'s campus store selection is pretty
lousy in linguistics--a shame because I like being able to *own* things
I'm going to refer to again and again.  But I ought to have better luck
finding some of those recommended books in the library.  Thanks for the
fascinating information!

YHL