LINGUIST List 5.10

Sat 01 Jan 1994

Disc: The Nature of Linguistics

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1. Alexis Manaster-Ramer, Slavic yers, Abstractness, and Linguistics as a Science
2. , Re: 4.1080 The Nature Of Linguistics

If linguistics is supposed to be any kind of more or less
scientific (or just scholarly) activity, then how can we take
a major unresolved theoretical issue (that of abstractness in
phonology) and either pretend that there is no issue (and that
things like "synchronic" yers are uncontroversial) or else (as
one person was quoted to have said in a recent summary) treat
such an issue as merely a "matter of personal belief"? Of the
two attitudes, by the way, the second seems much more harmful,
although it must be conceded that at least it encourages people
to acknowledge the existence of the issue.

Message 2: Re: 4.1080 The Nature Of Linguistics

With tongue only slightly in cheek, I'd like to suggest that contemporary
linguistics is better understood not as it relates to either psychology *or*
to physics (or some other paradigm science), but as a religion, complete with
priesthood, holy texts, holy wars, and, most of all, blind faith. You'd be
surprised at how much of what has happened in the field over the last thirty
or so years suddenly makes a great deal more sense.

How many bindings can dance in the head of a true believer (or a
grammatollah)?

Cheers,

Andy Rogers