From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Natural language, prescriptivism, etc.
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:05:38 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr8.133314.26710@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>Some of us feel pretty strongly that there
>are such rules and that it is the job of the grammarian or linguist
>to discover and then enforce (whatever that means) these rules.
>Others feel perhaps even more strongly that "natural language isn't
>like that," that there are no such rules for natural language, and
>that it is silly (or perhaps even evil) to act as though there are.

Fine so far, as long as you emphasise the "such" in "such rules".  Some
of us believe that there are rules, but they are not "such rules"; that
is, they are not rules which need enforcement, any more than the 'rules'
of physics do.

In fact, there are several kinds of rules.  There are the rules that describe
how languages change over time; there are rules that attempt (so far with
less-than-total success) to characterize the way in which a given language
is spoken at a given time, and there are rules that describe the way some
group of people would prefer the language to be spoken.  The connections
between these three different kinds of rules are not particularly strong.

>In addition, there are those who feel that whatever natural language
>is like, it is not *at all* like formal languages (such as computer
>languages, logical languages, etc.).

I'm one of these.  I think the major difference is one of definiteness.  It
is (by definition) fairly easy to write down a complete characterization of
a formal language.  It is probably impossible to write down a complete
characterization of any natural language, or even any one person's idiolect
at any given time.

>If others are interested, I'd like to punt the question of "hopefully"
>up to the meta-level,

By all means! :-)

> and and ask what people think is the proper
>role of the linguist or grammarian.  Surely if there is such a role,
>it is intimately bound to the issue of usage, whence this news group
>takes its name.  It is also at the heart of the prescriptivist/anti-
>prescriptivist debate.

Fair enough.

I see the goal of linguists as the discovery and codification of the first
two kinds of rules I described above, with the additional goal of gaining
understanding of such universal principles as exist in human languages.  In
other words, to find a descriptive model of what language is, what languages
could and could not exist, and how they change.

The role of the grammarian, within the context of a given language, is to
identify the regularities and irregularities in the way the language is
actually used.  There may be a fair amount of overlap between this and the
work of linguists attempting to model syntax, but there need not be.  These
regularities can be codified as rules (and exceptions to the rules).

Note that the question of prescriptivism/laissez-faire is still open...

>To kick things off, consider the following views of Richard Montague:

	[quotation deleted, in which Montague asserts that there
	 is no important difference between the structures of
	 natural languages and the structures of formal languages.]

>Both of these papers are reprinted in _Formal_Philosophy_, Yale
>University Press, 1974.  If you want to flame these views, at least
>be aware that Montague was not simply whistling in the wind, that
>he made significant contributions to the semantics of natural language,

Yes, but one must also keep in mind that it was a *premise* of Montague's
work that a natural language can be adequately modelled by a deterministic
computational model.  He's hardly likely to assert the contrary, and thus
invalidate all his own work.

>So, some questions of interest (at least to me):
>
>	What *is* the proper role of the linguist or grammarian?
>	Does this entail a prescriptive element?

See above.

>	What are the criteria (if any) of good usage vs. bad usage?

Does the utterance say what you want it to say, in the ears of the hearer,
without the hearer having to decode or correct it?

>	(Can *any* usage be said to be bad -- if so, on what grounds?)

Usage can be bad, in that it doesn't say what you want it to say to *anyone*,
or inappropriate, in that it doesn't say what you want it to say to this
particular audience.  Changes in usage can be desirable, in that they make
the language more easily able to express a range of ideas and attitudes with
clarity, or undesirable, in that they introduce ambiguity and lose information.

>Any takers?  Of course any fool can express an opinion on such matters
>(God knows *I* have!).  

So now we're even :-).


-- 
          David M. Tate            |"The man who hath no music in himself
     dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu       | Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sound
  A poem should be dumb, / As old  | Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils
 medallions to the thumb.-MacLeish | 	Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice", A.V
From: apm@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Andrew Merritt)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 11:26:29 GMT
Subject: Re: Missing syllables in place names
Organization: Hewlett-Packard NSG-PWD, UK.