Linguistic Intuitions and the Voice of Competence

This chapter defends a “voice of competence” (“VoC”) view of the speaker intuitions on which Chomskyans rely, whereby they are a relatively direct causal consequence of (non-conceptual) representations generated by a speaker’s I-language. Devitt has argued against this view, defending instead the view that, although speakers’ intuitions are ultimately based upon items produced by an internal grammar for central cognition, these items merely “have” and do not represent syntactic properties. Moreover, what speakers ordinarily hear are not those linguistic properties, but only “the message” the items convey. Speaker’s intuitions are therefore just part of their empirical knowledge of items in the world generally, no different in principle from their knowledge of typing. The chapter argues that internal items “having” properties cannot explain the way that syntactic properties are integrated into perception; only representations of properties can do that, which, when they do, also inform speakers’ intuitions. The conclusion looks at the considerable empirical evidence that exists for phonological and syntactic perception often trumping understanding of whatever likely message was intended.

Monad combinatorics

This chapter considers how the monadic formalization deals with interactions between the phenomena from the second part of the book by examining the pairwise interaction of all three phenomena. Distributive laws are introduced to combine monads. The chapter shows that only certain combinations of the monads from the second part have definable distributive laws. These results comport with linguistic intuitions. The option of using the related category-theoretic concepts of functors and applicative functors instead of monads is also considered. The chapter shows that functors are not powerful enough and that applicative functors introduce a tracking/layering problem that is inelegant. Also, the closure property of applicative functor composition, whereby the composition of any two applicative functors is also an applicative functor, overgenerates with respect to the data. Monads are therefore argued to be empirically superior to applicative functors in this domain precisely because they lack the closure property. Some exercises are provided to aid understanding.

Linguistic intuitions and the puzzle of gradience

This chapter addresses the question of whether gradience in acceptability should be considered evidence for gradience in grammar. Most current syntactic theories are based on a categorical division of grammatical versus ungrammatical sentences. In contrast, acceptability intuitions, that is, the data used to build those theories, have long been recognized to be gradient. The chapter presents two experiments collecting acceptability ratings for 100 sentences extracted from papers published in Linguistic Inquiry. The results show a gradient pattern. It is argued that this gradience in acceptability is highly unlikely to be due to methodological and other known extra-grammatical factors. Unless another factor can be identified, it seems reasonable to assume that the observed gradience comes (also) from the grammar. Furthermore, the chapter presents a proposal concerning diacritics, according to which the traditional asterisk is reserved for ungrammaticality only, and a new diacritic (“^”) indicates reduced acceptability.

Linguistic intuitions again

Linguistics takes speakers’ intuitions about the syntactic and semantic properties of their language as good evidence for a theory of that language. Why are these intuitions good evidence? The received Chomskyan answer is that they are the product of an underlying linguistic competence. In Devitt’s Ignorance of Language, this Voice of Competence answer (VoC) was criticized and an alternative view, according to which intuitions are empirical theory-laden central-processor responses to phenomena, was defended. After summarizing this position, the chapter responds to Steven Gross and Georges Rey, who defend VoC. It argues that they have not provided the sort of empirically based details that make VoC worth pursuing. In doing so, it emphasizes two distinctions: (1) between the intuitive behavior of language processing and the intuitive judgments that are the subject of VoC; and (2) between the possible roles of structural descriptions in language processing and in providing intuitions.

Linguistic Intuitions

In recent years there has been an increased interest in the evidential status and use of linguistic intuitions. This volume provides the most recent cutting-edge contributions from linguists and philosophers working on this topic. The volume is organized around two questions that have been at the heart of this debate: the justification question, which asks about a theoretical rationale for using linguistic intuitions as evidence in the study of language, and the methodology question, which asks whether formal methods of gathering intuitions are epistemically and methodologically superior to informal ones. The first part of the volume addresses the justification question and covers a broad range of novel theoretical contributions that either justify or critically evaluate the evidential use of linguistic intuitions. The second part of the volume presents and critically discusses recent developments in the domain of experimental syntax, where the methodology question has been debated. All chapters seek to shed new light on whether and how linguistic intuitions can be used in theorizing about language.

Introduction

The introductory chapter presents the current status of the debate concerning linguistic intuitions, starting with their early use in the Chomskyan tradition. It introduces the two main questions discussed in the volume: the justification question, which asks for a theoretical rationale for using linguistic intuitions as evidence in the study of language; and the methodology question, which asks whether formal methods of gathering intuitions are epistemically and methodologically superior to informal ones. The introduction also provides summaries of the remaining chapters and explains how they contribute to the debates raised by these two questions.

Experiments in syntax and philosophy

Within Chomskyan syntax, linguistic intuitions have traditionally been gathered informally from small samples of linguists. Since the mid-1990s, however, several linguists have called for more “scientific” methods, including the use of larger sample sizes of ordinary speakers and the use of statistics. The first part of this chapter discusses whether such an “experimental approach” to obtaining syntactical intuitions is really methodologically superior to the informal approach, as is sometimes claimed. The answer is thought to be: not always. In the second part our attention turns to another academic field in which intuitions arguably play an evidential role, namely philosophy. Here, too, critics have demanded that intuitions be harvested more systematically; they have even appealed to experimental syntax in order to support their cause. However, given our assessment, experimental methods in syntax can be a model for the promotion of experimental methods in philosophy only under certain conditions.

How we can make good use of linguistic intuitions, even if they are not good evidence

The chapter defends a limited non-evidential justification of the use of native speaker metalinguistic judgments (intuitions) as data in linguistics. According to this view, intuitions are not a source of scientific evidence, but can be a justified means of appealing to shared background theory. None of the leading defenses of construing metalinguistic judgments as evidence, it is argued, is supported by the preponderance of empirical and philosophical evidence. Instead, intuitions in linguistics serve the function of delimiting what belongs to the shared background and what questions are currently under the microscope. For intuitions to serve this purpose, however, they must be broadly shared. It is likely that some of the more complex and unusual example sentences constructed by linguists don’t actually engender identical judgments across linguists, and in these cases it would be inappropriate to take the linguist’s judgment as accessing the common ground of background beliefs.

Linguistic intuitions

Linguistic intuitions are a central source of evidence across a variety of linguistic domains. They have also long been a source of controversy. This chapter aims to illuminate the etiology and evidential status of at least some linguistic intuitions by relating them to error signals of the sort posited by accounts of online monitoring of speech production and comprehension. The suggestion is framed as a novel reply to Michael Devitt’s claim that linguistic intuitions are theory-laden “central systems” responses rather than endorsed outputs of a modularized language faculty (the “Voice of Competence”). Along the way, it is argued that linguistic intuitions may not constitute a natural kind with a common etiology and that, for a range of cases, the process by which the intuitions used in linguistics are generated amounts to little more than comprehension.