Re: To Matt Pearson

    Wow; very thorough.  Thanks!

In a message dated 10/23/01 11:19:27 AM, Matthew.Pearson@DIRECTORY.REED.EDU
writes:

<< The problem with word-chain devices is that words don't just have
syntactic/semantic dependencies with the words or phrases which they are
adjacent to; there are also *long-distance* dependencies...

EITHER Marion likes ice-cream, OR James likes ice-cream.

  IF Marion likes ice-cream, THEN James likes ice-cream. >>

    See, to this I would say that "either" and "if" just have roles that need
to be filled somewhere on down the line, and that the speaker then has to
remember to fill the role.  I think this can explain why the "then" in
"if/then" clauses is often dropped, so that most people will usually say "If
Marion likes ice cream, James likes ice cream".  "Or", however, seems to be
too heavily ingrained, that speakers couldn't imagine a sentence without "or"
that would ordinarily call for it, so it probably won't be lost.  So I don't
understand why the guys who created this hypothesis thought the above
examples were problems...  In fact, these are easily explained; it's the
one's that go the other way that require some contriving.

<<For example, there's no principled reason why some word in some language
couldn't have the category NP/V/V/V/V/V ("combines with a noun phrase to give
something that combines with a verb to give something that combines with a
verb to give... etc."), but I don't think any such cases exist.>>

    What about Chinese?
    Anyway, the main problem I continue to have with Chomsky's idea is that
people, while speaking, actually are making these transformations in their
head.  It seems largely counterintuitive, and counterproductive to fast
speech.  I may have given an example similar to this already on this list
last year, but what about a sentence like:
    "Yeah, I can't stand Meredith!  I wouldn't be caught dead talking [t_hu]
teaspoons of salt."
And what happens hear (and this is a somewhat real context, though the name
has been changed) is that the speaker and the person to whom the speaker
speaks are cooking, and in the middle of the sentence, Meredith pops in (the
speaker is not "talking to teaspoons of salt", that's "two teaspoons of
salt").  How would Chomsky's theory account for such things?  Speech (as
opposed to writing) isn't as simple as writing (and this I even neglected to
say, given Faulkner and Finnegans Wake).  What about the following: "So,
like...I went to this--no, dude, dude!  This guy, he...like, I saw this guy,
and he was wearing a Thomas Lennon T-shirt".  Hmmm...  Maybe that last wasn't
the best example, given the speech breaks, but the first still stands.
    Anyway, just so you know, I haven't taken the required syntax class yet;
that comes next semester.

-David