The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0001
R. Harris
{"title":"Language, Thought, and the Linguistics Wars","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0001","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides brief overviews of the role that language plays in culture and thought, of the job that linguists do to investigate the roles that language plays, and of the dispute among linguists that forms the narrative core of this book, as well as introducing the linguists who drove that dispute: Noam Chomsky, Ray Jackendoff, Robin and George Lakoff, Jim McCawley, Paul Postal, and Haj Ross. That dispute hinged on the relative significance of linguistic structure and linguistic meaning for the way we understand language and its relation to thought.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130487853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0006
R. Harris
{"title":"Generative Semantics 3: The Ethos","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes the distinctive ethos of Generative Semantics, which permeated the field from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, exactly when the counterculture (“the hippies”) were flourishing as a broad cultural movement. While there were many personal motivations in the development of this ethos, a broad generalization holds that just as the counterculture was rooted in rejecting establishment values, the Generative Semantics ethos was rooted in a rejection of perceived Chomskyan values. Their intellectual style embraced humor (Chomsky epitomizes seriousness), political engagement (Chomsky was a forceful activist but segregated his political and linguistic work sharply), and a veneration of data for the sake of data (Chomsky’s data was always highly constrained, in direct service to his theoretical claims; Generative Semanticists eagerly pursued data even when it undermined their theories).","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133954163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0007
R. Harris
{"title":"Generative Semantics 4: The Collapse","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter traces the collapse of Generative Semantics, which ultimately became a movement away from Noam Chomsky’s view of linguistics, more than a movement toward a unifying vision of language or linguistics. The leaders all went in various directions. Paul Postal and Jim McCawley retained their commitments to formal modeling, but Postal developed a new, non-Transformational framework with David Perlmutter, Relational Grammar, while McCawley continued to ply an increasingly idiosyncratic Transformational model he eventually called Unsyntax. Robin Lakoff led the expansion of linguistic pragmatics and founded feminist linguistics. George Lakoff and Haj Ross took overlapping but distinct forays into non-discrete linguistics. Meanwhile, the Generative Semantics ethos was losing whatever appeal it may have had. Linguists outside the movement, and some within, found the style irritating. Meanwhile, too, Chomsky’s innovations were proving very fruitful and attracting adherents under the label, the Extended Standard Theory. Chomsky’s framework emerged from the brief Generative Semantics eclipse and now seemed the clear winner of the Linguistics Wars.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"299 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128617300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0004
R. Harris
{"title":"Generative Semantics 2: The Heresy","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how Generative Semantics, which had emerged from Transformational Grammar as part natural extension of, and part challenge to, Noam Chomsky’s work, became a full-blown heretical divergence with Chomsky’s 1967 “Remarks on Nominalization” lectures, in which he took his theory in countervailing directions. Generative Semanticists had extended syntactic derivations deeper, diminished the lexicon, and enriched the scope of transformations. The lectures emphasized Surface Structure semantics, enriched the lexicon, and diminished the role of transformations. They were also dismissive of specific Generative Semantic innovations, especially those of George Lakoff. Lakoff attended the lectures. Sparks flew. Chomsky and his new proposals fared poorly across the linguistic landscape, where Generative Semantics rapidly took hold, but his own students, Ray Jackendoff at the fore, were inspired by the new direction (known variously as “Lexicalism,” “Extended Standard Theory,” and, contrapuntally to the heresy, “Interpretive Semantics”).","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133824777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0002
R. Harris
{"title":"The Beauty of Deep Structure","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter charts the rise of Noam Chomsky’s Transformational-Generative Grammar, from its cornerstone role in the cognitive revolution up to its widely heralded realization in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. That realization featured the development of an evocative concept, Deep Structure, a brilliant nexus of meaning and structure that integrates seamlessly with Chomsky’s companion idea, Universal Grammar, the notion that all languages share a critical, genetically encoded core. At a technical level, Deep Structure concentrated meaning because of the Katz-Postal Principle, stipulating that transformations cannot change meaning. Transformations rearrange structure while keeping meaning stable. The appeal of Deep Structure and Universal Grammar helped Transformational Grammar propagate rapidly into language classrooms, literary studies, stylistics, and computer science, gave massive impetus to the emergence of psycholinguistics, attracted substantial military and educational funding, and featured prominently in Chomsky’s meteoric intellectual stardom.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126158024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0010
R. Harris
{"title":"Chomsky Agonistes","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides an overview of Noam Chomsky’s current linguistic framework, the Minimalist Program, and the evolutionary milieu in which it is now mostly plied, including the linguistic implications of FOXP2, often called “the language gene” in popular media. The chapter also tackles the most touchy and slippery psychobiographical issue in the field of linguistics over the course of Chomsky’s lengthy and influential career: his rhetorical tactics, especially in connection with the truth. Chomsky has been widely accused of dishonesty, misrepresentation, and, in George Lakoff’s terms “fighting dirty,” as well as being venerated and defended just as widely. I examine that claim with respect to yet another Chomskyan tempest, the dispute over Daniel Everett’s claim that the language Pirahã does not exhibit recursion, a property that seems to be required by Chomsky's Universal Grammar, and through a close reading of an exchange over the existence of grammatical rules with philosopher and early Chomsky supporter, John Searle. Finally, it sifts through Chomsky’s record and the current state of the field to speculate about Chomsky’s legacy.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126163785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0005
R. Harris
{"title":"The Vicissitudes of War","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter charts the battles around the central notions of the Generative/Interpretive Semantics dispute: the existence of Deep Structure (rejected by Generative Semantics, redefined by Interpretive Semantics), the Katz-Postal Principle (rejected by both, in different ways), the notion of grammaticality (distended by Generative Semantics into contingencies and gradations, then rejected; retained by Interpretive Semantics). It also examines the rhetorical maneuvers around George Lakoff’s proposal of global rules (embraced as unfortunately inevitable by Generative Semantics, terminologically rejected but methodologically embraced by Interpretive Semantics). The chapter also documents some of the direct firefights and skirmishes across the Transformational Grammar battlefield, which left Generative Semantics in a position of clear ascendancy.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117156782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0009
R. Harris
{"title":"The Aftermath: Twenty-First Century Linguistics","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter revisits the major linguists of the Generative/Interpretive Semantics dispute (except Noam Chomsky, who fittingly gets his own chapter): Robin Lakoff, George Lakoff, Haj Ross, Paul Postal, and Jim McCawley, noting both their contributions and their post-dispute trajectories. It also charts out two broad legacies of the Generative Semantics movement: a number of technical proposals that arose in that framework which found themselves in other formal linguistic models, prominently including those associated with Chomsky; and the general “Greening of Linguistics”: a range of functional, cognitive, and usage-based approaches whose origins trace to the Generative Semanticists’ rejection of defining Chomskyan values.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"293 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123451067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0008
R. Harris
{"title":"Twentieth Century Linguistics at Closing Time","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter appraises the state of linguistics at the end of the twentieth century in the wake of the Generative/Interpretive Semantics episode. The period saw a huge upswing in Noam Chomsky’s influence with the dominance of his Government and Binding/Principles and Parameters model, but also the development of multiple other competing and intersecting formal models, all of which did away with Chomsky’s totemic concept, the transformation: Relational Grammar (RG), Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG), and so many more that Frederick Newmeyer tagged the lot of them Alphabet Grammars (AGs). Alongside these frameworks came George Lakoff’s most far-reaching and influential development, with philosopher, Mark Johnson, “Conceptual Metaphor Theory” (a label the author rejects).","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124595040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Linguistics WarsPub Date : 2021-11-11DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0003
R. Harris
{"title":"Generative Semantics 1: The Model","authors":"R. Harris","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199740338.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter follows the emergence of Generative Semantics from the Transformational Grammar developments codified in Noam Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. It was on George Lakoff’s mind from before Aspects but it only achieved the rhetorical, sociological, and theoretical conditions to thrive with that codification. Generative Semantics looked like a natural extension of Transformational Grammar, rooting itself in the semantic subsoil of Deep Structure and aligning closely with Universal Grammar. But that subsoil quickly proved to be less fertile than it had seemed, so Generative Semantics imported concepts from logic and philosophy of language; and Universal Grammar proved less substantial than it had seemed, so Generative Semantics solidified it with a Universal Base hypothesis. The resulting model was an extraordinarily elegant theory in which language passed through a homogeneous system of rules from thought and meaning to structure and expression, but it contained multiple seeds, both attitudinal and technical, of a challenge to Chomsky’s work.","PeriodicalId":273186,"journal":{"name":"The Linguistics Wars","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127905179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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