and Critical Thinking; Challenge]
In the main body of the text we claimed that all anaphors need an antecedent. Consider the following acceptable sentence. This kind of sentence is called an “imperative” and is used to give orders.
1 Don’t hit yourself!
Part 1: Are all anaphors allowed in sentences like (a)? Which ones are allowed there, and which ones aren’t?
Part 2: Where is the antecedent for yourself? Is this a counterexample to our rule? Why is this rule an exception? It is easy to add a stipulation to our rule; but we’d rather have an explanatory rule. What is special about the sentence in (a)?
CPS4. CONSTRUCT AN EXPERIMENT
[Creative and Critical Thinking; Challenge]
Linguists have observed that when the subject of a sentence is close to the verb, the verb will invariably agree with that subject.
1 She is dancing.
2 They are dancing.
3 The man is dancing.
4 The men are dancing.
But under certain circumstances this tight verb–subject agreement relation is weakened (sentence taken from Bock and Miller 1991).
e) The readiness of our conventional forces are at an all-time low
The subject of the sentence readiness is singular but the verb seems to agree with the plural
forces. The predicted form is:
f) The readiness of our conventional forces is at an all-time low.
One hypothesis about this is that the intervening noun (forces) blocks the agreement with the actual subject noun readiness.
Construct an experiment that would test this hypothesis. What kind of data would you need to confirm or deny this hypothesis? How would you gather these data?
CPS5. OFF WE GO 23
[Critical thinking; application of skills; Challenge]
Consider the expressions off we go and in you go. There seems to be some limits on which prepositions and verbs can be used in this construction.
Considering only two classes of verbs: Stative verbs like sit, sleep, and live and motion verbs like go, dance, run. Use the scientific method construct a hypothesis about kinds of verbs can appear in this construction and which cannot. Test your hypothesis with other verbs.
CPS6. JUDGMENTS 24
[Data Analysis and Application of Skills; Challenge]
Consider the following sentences:
a)
1 The students met to discuss the project.
2 The student met to discuss the project.
3 The class met to discuss the project.
b)
1 Zeke cooked and ate the chili.
2 Zeke ate and cooked the chili.
c)
1 He put the clothes.
2 He put in the washing machine.
3 He put the clothes in the washing machine.
4 He put in the washing machine the clothes.
d)
1 I gave my sister a birthday present.
2 I gave a birthday present to my sister.
3 That horror movie almost gave my sister a heart attack.
4 That horror movie almost gave a heart attack to my sister.
e) Where do you guys live at?
f)
1 It is obvious to everybody that Tasha likes Misha.
2 The fact that Tasha likes Misha is obvious to everybody.
3 Who is it obvious that Tasha likes?25
4 Who is the fact that Tasha likes obvious?
Some of these sentences would be judged acceptable by all (or nearly all) speakers of English, while other sentences would be judged unacceptable by at least some speakers. Find at least five native English speakers and elicit an acceptability judgment for each of these sentences (present the sentences to your speakers orally, rather than having them read them off the page). Give the results of your elicitation in the form of a table. Discuss how your consultants’ reactions compare with your own native speaker judgments. If a sentence is judged unacceptable by most or all speakers, what do you think is the source of the unacceptability? Choose from the options listed below, and briefly explain and justify each choice. Are there any sentences for which it is difficult to determine the reason for the unacceptability, and if so, why?
1 The sentence is unacceptable in the linguistic sense: It would not be produced by a fully competent native speaker of English under any context, and is unlikely to be uttered except as a performance error. It should be marked with a *.
2 The sentence is marginally acceptable. One could imagine a native speaker saying this sentence, but it seems less than perfect syntactically, and should probably be marked with a ? or ??.
3 The sentence is fully grammatical in the linguistic sense, but only in some varieties of English. It is likely to be treated as ‘incorrect’ or ‘poor style’ by some speakers because it belongs to a stigmatized variety (an informal or colloquial register, or a non- standard dialect), and is not part of formal written English. We might choose to indicate this with a %.
4 The sentence is syntactically well-formed, but semantically anomalous: It cannot be assigned a coherent interpretation based on the (normal) meanings of its component words, and should be marked with a #.
CPS7. COMPETENCE VS. PERFORMANCE
[Creative and Critical Thinking; Extra Challenge]
Performance refers to a set of behaviors; competence refers to the knowledge that underlies that behavior. We’ve talked about it for language, but can you think about other cognitive systems or behaviors where we might see examples of this distinction? What are they? Acceptability judgments work for determining the competence underlying language; how might a cognitive scientist explore competence in other domains?
CPS8. IS LANGUAGE REALLY INFINITE?
