Discussion Details
| Title: | Re: A Challenge to the Minimalist Community |
| Submitter: | Martha McGinnis |
| Description: | Unfortunately though, a great many responses to our challenge
from the P&P/MP community have involved various attempts to argue that our challenge is irrelevant to the goals of that version of theoretical syntax. This does not suggest to us that there is any widespread desire to play together. On the contrary, it is Charles Yang and I who have noted the desirability of collaboration, and Sproat and Lappin who have sidestepped the suggestion. Most syntacticians who have posted responses have made it clear that in practical terms it would be impossible for us to undertake such a project without collaboration. Remember, Sproat and Lappin began the discussion, not by offering to play together, but by declaring that Minimalism/P&P can't be taken seriously until it produces a large-scale trainable parser. It's not surprising that many people's first reaction was to refute this assertion. If the suggestion had been to play together, the response would have been very different. And indeed, if there are any computational linguists who are actually interested in pursuing Sproat and Lappin's project (as Sproat and Lappin themselves apparently are not), I imagine there are many Minimalist syntacticians who would be willing to help out. Cheers, Martha _____________________________________________ Dr. Martha McGinnis, Assistant Professor Linguistics Department, University of Calgary 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary AB T2N 1N4 phone: (403) 220-6119 fax: (403) 282-3880 http://www.ling.ucalgary.ca/~mcginnis/ _____________________________________________ |
| Date Posted: | 17-May-2005 |
| Linguistic Field(s): |
Computational Linguistics
Linguistic Theories Discipline of Linguistics |
| LL Issue: | 16.1580 |
| Posted: | 17-May-2005 |
