Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-w7rtg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-16T12:38:51.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Three incompatible hypotheses: evidence from Blackfoot1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Donald G. Frantz
Donald G. Frantz*
Affiliation:
Summer Institute of Linguistics
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Given the present state of transformational grammar theory, it is virtually impossible to provide convincing support for, or (and this, of course, is more serious) evidence against, any single hypothesis. Between 1957 and 1965, revisions of the theory and new hypotheses were generally proposed one or two at a time and tested within the otherwise widely accepted theoretical framework (the ‘paradigm’: Kuhn 1962). However, in recent years just about everything but the need for transformations to pair more abstract objects with actual and/or potential linguistic objects has been called into question or affected somehow by new hypotheses. Consequently, linguists must realize that any evidence they attempt to marshal for or against a particular hypothesis can be refuted or circumvented by at least one combination of other apparently unrelated popular hypotheses (abetted by the excessive power of transformational rules: Peters 1970).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Spring 1973 , pp. 7 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Braithwaite, Richard Bevan 1953 Scientific explanation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan 1971 Sentence stress and syntactic transformations. Language 47.47–257 (1971).Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam 1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam 1970 Some empirical issues in the theory of transformational grammar. Mimeo (Indiana University Linguistics Club).Google Scholar
Frantz, Donald G. 1966 Person indexing in Blackfoot. IJAL 32.32–50 (1966).Google Scholar
Frantz, Donald G. 1970 Toward a generative grammar of Blackfoot. Ph.D. dissertation, Alberta. (To be published in the series Publications in Linguistics and Related Fields, Santa Ana: SIL.)Google Scholar
Grimes, Joseph E. 1968 The thread of discourse. Ms. (ERIC document ED-019669).Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray Saul 1969 Some rules of semantic interpretation for English. Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T. Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962 The structure of scientific revolutions. International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Volume 2, Number 2; Second edition 1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1968a Concerning the base component of a transformational grammar. Foundations of Language 4.4–243 (1968).Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1968b Lexical insertion in a transformational grammar without deep structure. Papers from the fourth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 71–80.Google Scholar
Permutter, David M. 1971 Deep and surface structure constraints in syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.Google Scholar
Peters, Stanley 1970 Why there are many “universal” bases. Papers in Linguistics 2.2–27 (1970).Google Scholar