<OT> New Posting: ROA-661

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 661-0504

Degraded Acceptability and Markedness in Syntax, and the Stochastic Interpretation of Optimality Theory

Ralf Vogel <rvogel at ling.uni-potsdam.de>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=661


Abstract:
The paper offers a critical discussion of treatments of
gradience in generative syntax, including several proposal
made within OT. I present, in a summarised form, novel data
from experimental and corpus research on case conflicts
in German free relative constructions. The results of these
studies show a discrepancy between the results of experiments
and corpus research which first of all calls for a reflection
on the nature of different empirical methods and which kinds
of predictions we expect a model of grammar to make for
these methods.


And it calls for the differentiation of grammar-intrinsic
and grammar-external factors that influence empirical results.
Grammaticality judgement tasks are unnatural in the sense
that they force participants to be normative. The frequencies
of corpus studies not only reflect how often a particular
structure wins a competition (i.e. its probability of winning
in a stochastic OT model), but also how often the competition
itself takes place. OT models only care about the former,
not the latter, and not distinguishing these two factors
leads to counterintuitive proposals. However, it can be
shown that both kinds of infrequency are guided by markedness.


Critically reviewing attempts to apply Stochastic OT to
syntax, I argue that there is a simple and straightforward
correlate of gradience (in observations) within OT models:
markedness. Winners of OT competitions are grammatical,
but nevertheless they are assigned different violation profiles
by the grammar. This feature of OT can successfully be correlated
with the gradience we find in our empirical studies. Nevertheless
, to account for the full range of data, it seems unavoidable
to assume that the empirical tasks impose some constraint
rerankings on the OT grammar which seem characteristic for
these tasks.


Instead of worrying about this result, I take the position
that we should expect it, because there is not the one 'innocent'
empirical method which reflects the 'pure' grammar. Consequently,
we need an 'enlightened' perspective on empirical methods.
The predictions of a model should be robust across different
empirical methods, but the effects of the methods themselves
on their results need to be reflected in the analysis, too.

Comments: draft, 5th May 2004, to appear in Fanselow, Fery, Schlesewsky & Vogel (eds.), Gradiencedraft, 5th May 2004, to appear in Fanselow, Fery, Schlesewsky & Vogel (eds.), Gradience in Grammar, OUP, 2005, comments very welcome
Keywords: gradience, syntax, empirical linguistics, corpus studies, experiments
Areas: Psycholinguistics,Syntax
Type: Book Chapter

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=661