LINGUIST List 7.1746

Tue Dec 10 1996

Sum: Generativity

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <annlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. N. Chipere, SUM: Generativity

On November 4 I wrote


> I am looking for references to past or on-going research on evidence
> for syntactic generativity, or lack of it, among native speakers of
> any language, though I have a particular interest in English. I am
> also interested in correlations between education and linguistic
> capacity.

Thanks to:

John Grinstead
Catherine Ball
Georgia Green
Sherri Condon

for comments and suggestions, and

Ewa Dabrowska for references. Rather than annotate the bibliography,
which is long, I've summarised the main points of my literature review
(1 page). Hopefully this summary can serve as a guide to the
bibliography for those interested in the topic.


Summary

Adult native users of a language are assumed to have the competence to
understand and produce sentences of infinite syntactic
complexity. This competence takes the form of an innate generative
system of phrase structure rules which is uniform for all mature
language users (see Chomsky, 1965). However, it has been observed in
numerous experiments that there are certain types of sentence which
native users of a language either cannot comprehend or have extreme
difficulty in doing so. It has also been observed that native users of
a language differ in their ability to decode syntax. The classical
account for both observations is that syntax is computed by a finite
working memory: if the syntactic complexity of a sentence exceeds
working memory capacity, the sentence cannot be assigned a structural
description and therefore cannot be comprehended. The fact that native
users of a language cannot understand certain constructions can
therefore be explained in terms of limitations in working memory. By
the same token, individual differences in syntactic ability can be
explained in terms of individual differences in working memory
capacity. This competence versus performance view of language
comprehension depends on two main assumptions: a) that comprehending a
sentence involves generating a syntactic description of it in working
memory by using phrase structure rules and b) that working memory has
a small and fixed capacity. However, subsequent developments in
linguistic theory and psychology undermine these assumptions and the
theory which depends on them.

Linguistic theories appear to have largely abandoned phrase structure
rules (eg Word Grammar, HPSG and GB, other linguistic traditions, such
as the fithian school, have always made use of multiword
sequences). In much of current linguistic theory, the syntactic
structures previously generated by phrase structure rules are now
simply listed in the lexicon as part of the structure of individual
lexical items. Lexical structure includes both the argument structure
of a verb as well as its semantic interpretation in the form of
thematic structure. By implication, comprehending a sentence does not
require syntactic structures to be generated in working memory.
Instead, what is required is to access lexical structures from the
lexicon (Chomsky, 1986). In psycholinguistic terms, this translates to
describing comprehension as a process of retrieving lexical
information from long term memory.

In a separate development, it is now being argued in psychology that
the capacity of working memory is not fixed, but rather depends partly
on the efficiency with which information can be read from and written
to long term memory. Efficient access to long term memory requires
that there be `retrieval structures' which allow information to be
stored and retrieved rapidly and accurately (see Kintsch and Ericsson,
1995). Individual differences in working memory capacity, such as the
ability to recall the positions of chess pieces on a chess board, are
related to the existence of such retrieval structures in long term
memory. Chess experts have more developed retrieval structures and
strategies than chess novices and therefore possess larger working
memory capacities for chess. If a parallel can be drawn between
`retrieval structures' in, for instance, chess and lexical structures
in language (putting text structures aside for the moment), then there
is a logical possibility that limitations in working memory for
language are, to a certain extent, limitations in an individual's
lexicon (i.e. linguistic knowledge in long term memory). This much is
indicated by a number of experimental studies in which it is argued
that native speakers of a language differ in their ability to perceive
and use linguistic structure during comprehension. Differences in
linguistic knowledge (if linguistic knowledge = lexical structure and
lexical structure = retrieval structure) might therefore manifest as
differences in linguistic working memory capacity. In sum, there is
good evidence that linguistic knowledge is neither generative (in the
classical sense) nor uniformly possessed by its speakers. Rather,
many of the studies cited below characterise language ability as an
acquired skill which displays many of the attributes common to other
skills.

The literature is organised into sections which correspond
roughly to the sequence of ideas in the summary. 


Bibliography


1. The Competence vs. Performance Distinction


Chomsky, N (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. MIT
Press.


2. Replacing Phrase Structure Rules with Lexical Structures/
Multi- Word Units


Andrews, A. (1988). Lexical Structure. In F. Newmeyer (ed.)
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Chomsky, N. (1986). Knowledge of Language: Its Nature,
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Fillmore, C.J. (1979). On Fluency. In Fillmore, C.J.,
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Pawley, A. and F. H. Syder (1983). Two puzzles for
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3. The Role of Long Term Memory in Working Memory


Ericsson, A. and W. Kintsch (1995). Long-Term Working
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source of many of the references below on memory)


4. Examples of Exceptional Working Memory Capacity in
Skilled Activities


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Morrow, D., Leirer, V., Alteiri, P. and C. Fitzsimmons
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Reitman, J. (1976). Skilled perception in go: Deducing
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Saarilouma, P. (1989). Chess players' recall of auditorily
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Saarilouma, P. (1991a). Visuo-spatial interference and
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Saarilouma, P. (1991b). Aspects of skilled imagery in
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5. The Contribution of Expertise/Familiarity to Working
Memory for Language


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6. Individual Differences in Syntactic Skill

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7. Constructions which Native Speakers of English Generally
Have Difficulty With

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Powell, A. and R.G. Peters (1973). Semantic Clues in
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Stolz, W. (1967). A Study of the Ability to Decode
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