From: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com (Richard Wojcik,snake)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Cognitive Phonology (was: Cognitive linguistics...)
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:21:07 GMT
Reply-To: rwojcik@atc.boeing.com
Organization: Research & Technology

In article 28370@midway.uchicago.edu, goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
>It has always seemed to me that NP could be tacked onto just about any theory
>of syntax and morphology, as long as certain adjustments are made.  Of course,
>the dividing line between these "levels" is not a firm as we might like it to
>be when breaking down a language or theoretical point of view.  Natural phon-
>ology, to me at least, seems to divide phonological behavior into a set of
>innate tendencies, and a set of actual behaviors that come to the fore via
>interaction with a living speech community.  Syntax these days, in many camps,
>adopts a very similar attitude, namely that well-formedness intuitions are
>formed by the interaction of one's innate linguistic capacities with actual
>language.  It's analogous to NP, except that the organs in question are men-
>tal (or do I have to say "cognitive" :-)).

When you talk about "innate tendencies" or "innate linguistic capacities", you
are using language that is abstract enough to mean almost anything.  I don't 
think it serves any useful purpose to use terms of this sort unless you make
it clear what you mean by them.  Unfortunately, linguists have been able to
make careers out of avoiding clarity on these issues.  IMHO, there is less
agreement among linguists than there is scholarly mimicry.  :-)  (And let me
hasten to disclaim, at this point, that Natural Phonologists are less skilled
at mimicry than other linguists. ;-)

No, there is no bifurcation between innate tendencies and actual behaviors in
NP, if I understand your general import here.  The intial Process system (a.k.a.
phonological system) functions in the same capacity as the mature Process
system--viz. to constrain articulation.  Remember that the novice human, in the
generative scenario, is trying to achieve an understanding of what is well-
formed.  Grammar construction is the method that allows him/her to do this.
The novice human in the NP scenario is only trying to pronounce words.  (S)he
may have various opinions about what needs to get said (i.e. what is well-
formed), but the Process system does not serve as a heuristic for well-formedness
until you can say what needs to get said.  Presumably, if you have a speech
impediment, that doesn't mean you can't notice it.  The process system, minus
the perceived impediment, comes to tell you what is legal phonological form.
In other words, the reliability of your "phonological system" as a predictor
of linguistic validity depends very much on how well you feel you've mastered
the language.  It is one source of knowledge about well-formedness, but not
necessarily the only one.  In fact, there probably isn't an "only one." 

Generative syntax, like generative phonology, seats linguistic intuition
in the grammar.  (Well, why not?  The term "grammar" itself prejudices the
ontology of the thing.)  It is a mystery to me how the novice child makes
its way in the generative scenario.  How can it test a grammar without knowing
what is grammatical in the first place?  Well, I suppose it can do the same
thing that the child does in the NP scenario--rely on extra-grammatical sources
of knowledge until the "grammar" is ready to take over.  It's just that the
two theories have different ideas about what the "grammar" is for.  And that
affects more than just linguistic analyses--whether you need to incorporate
some kind of phonotactic knowledge independently of alternation-governing
rules.  It affects what you count as evidence for your analyses.  Natural
Phonologists can look directly at foreign accent, whereas generative phonolo-
gists can only look askance at it and ponder how to fit it into theory (or
just ignore it).  After all, what does it have to do with well-formedness, the
seat of generative theory?  Foreign languages are, by definition, ill-formed.

I don't know if I've answered why you can't just plug NP into any theory, or
why it prefers Cognitive Grammar to Generative Grammar.  Frankly, I don't 
think that Cognitive Grammarians are really very clear on what to do about
well-formedness intuitions.  My advice is to make very sure that you have
an explanation--that is, if you want to replace a linguistic theory that 
already has an explanation for them.  Anyway, Cognitive Grammar is the closest
thing we have to a linguistic theory that gives up the doctrine of linguistic
competence, anathema to Natural Phonology.  But Cognitive Grammarians are still
exploring the consequences of what it means to give up that doctrine.

-----
Disclaimer:  Opinions expressed above are not those of my employer.

    Rick Wojcik   (rwojcik@atc.boeing.com)   Seattle, WA
Newsgroups: sci.lang