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Résumé
RESUME : Cet article tente de répondre à la question figurant dans son titre : Quelle est l'utilité de la méthodologie et
l'historiographie de la linguistique, du point de vue épistémologique ? Pour trouver une réponse, on passe en revue les thèmes
suivants : théorie grammaticale (aussi connue sous le nom de 'linguistique autonome1), linguistique causale, historiographie de
la linguistique, étude du langage et de l'esprit. Finalement, on fait quelques observations sur le débat récent concernant la nature
de la linguistique.
Abstract
ABSTRACT : This paper tries to answer the question that figures in its title : What is methodology (and history) of linguistics good
for, epistemologically speaking ? An answer is sought for, in turn, in the following areas : grammatical theory (also known as
'autonomous linguistics1), causal linguistics, historiography of linguistics, and the study of language and mind. The paper
concludes with some remarks on the recent discussion concerning the nature of linguistics.
Itkonen Esa. What is methodology (and history) of linguistics good for, epistemologically speaking?. In: Histoire Épistémologie
Langage. Tome 13, fascicule 1, 1991. pp. 51-75.
doi : 10.3406/hel.1991.2324
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/hel_0750-8069_1991_num_13_1_2324
Histoire Épistémologie Langage 13/1 (1991)
Esa ITKONEN
ABSTRACT : This paper tries to answer the question that figures in its
title : What is methodology (and history) of linguistics good for,
epistemologically speaking ? An answer is sought for, in turn, in the
following areas : grammatical theory (also known as 'autonomous
linguistics1), causal linguistics, historiography of linguistics, and the study
of language and mind. The paper concludes with some remarks on the
recent discussion concerning the nature of linguistics.
1. General Remarks.
'phenomenological'
A sound methodology
account of what
mustthe be
scientist
basedis doing
on ina fact,
detailed
not
dealt
'causal'
with
linguistics,
grammatical
as I did
theory
in my
in 1984
my G7M,
book Causality
I should innext
Linguistic
tackle
beliefs. The goal has the role of a 'dynamic cause1 while the belief
has the role of a 'static cause1. In acts of speaking the dynamic
causes include the speech intention while the static causes include the
mental grammar ; and just like all actions, acts of speaking too are
embedded in a means-end hierarchy in such a way that a lower-level
end (or goal) may serve as a means for a higher-level one. Within
the general notion of rationality, moreover, it is necessary to
distinguish between socially valid 'rationality principles' and their
individual-psychological internal izations ; a similar distinction has to
be made, of course, between rules (or norms) of correctness and
their internalizations (cf. CLT: 3.2).
Rationality encompasses a continuum leading from totally
unconscious to totally conscious. The more minute aspects of global
behavior are at issue (phonetic variation being the limiting case), the
more automatic and unconscious they tend to be, and vice versa ;
and the degree of nomicity increases proportionally to the degree of
unconsciousness. The study of the unconscious (including the mental
grammar) is the proper area for observational and/or experimental
methods. By contrast, algorithmic models for conscious behavior,
like those constructed within the artificial-intelligence paradigm,
reveal an interesting paradox : on the one hand, they are constructed
on the basis of the philosophical method of intuition-cum-reflection ;
on the other, they are meant to be causal models. The solution of
this paradox is as follows. As normative entities, rationality
principles are open to (conscious) intuition, and they as a matter of
fact constitute the data for models in question. These acquire their
'causal' import from the tacit assumption that the principles under
scrutiny have in fact been internalized by agents. It follows,
somewhat surprisingly, that the Pap-type explication can be, and has
been, extented to causal analysis (cf. CLT: 3.7).
It is generally thought that causal analysis proceeds,
hypothetico-inductively, from known effects to unknown (or less
well known) causes. Diesing (1972) points out, however, that social
sciences often employ 'synthetic models' which proceed in the
opposite way, namely from known causes to less well known effects.
Such 'known causes' turn out to be identical with norms for rational
behavior, i.e. our rationality principles. Now that we are able to
identify the Diesing-type synthetic model with the Pap-type
60 Esa Itkonen
explication, we may also note (cf. CLT: 6.0), that the 'causal'
human sciences (including linguistics) have to a large extent
misunderstood their own character, and still continue to do so. The
intellectual gain consists in being able to point this out.
certainly not been outmatched before the 1970 's, if even then.
Sîbawaihi's (d. 793) Al-Kitab, though not quite at the same level of
technical mastery, contains a syntactic theory that is certainly
superior to its pre-1900 Western counterparts. This means that all
preconceptions concerning the 'progress in linguistics' have to be
abandoned, in particular the presumption that there is any kind of
similarity between the progress in linguistics and the progress in the
natural sciences, e.g. in physics. For more than two thousand years,
there was, on the global scale, no progress in linguistics (more
precisely, grammatical theory) ; and what progress may have been
achieved today, is very much smaller than linguists are inclined to
think.
Once the facts are known, the next step is to ask for an
explanation : Why is the progress in linguistics so different from the
progress in physics ? By way of an answer, I offer here an analogy.
In the history of philosophy, Plato's and Aristotle's position is
almost (but not quite) as strong as Pânini's in the history of
linguistics. To make matters even clearer, consider Aristotle in his
two roles of a philosopher and of a physicist : in the former role he
is still our contemporary whereas in the latter he is hopelessly
outdated. The reason for this remarkable difference must be that the
ontology-cum-methodology of an intuitional science like philosophy
(or grammatical theory) has remained the same, whereas within the
natural sciences both the research methods and the research objects
have undergone a series of fundamental changes.
Above, I just gave the bare outline of my argument. It is
presented in much greated detail in UHL : 6.1.2. The view,
presented in Sections 2 and 3 above, that there is a significant
difference between human (in particular, intuitional) sciences and
natural sciences has now received additional, and rather dramatic,
support. That the result of historiographical research agrees with the
result of methodological research, enhances the plausibility of each.
What about epistemic relativism ? As is evident from the very
structure of UHL, I have no doubt that there is a common basis for
comparing the linguistic traditions in India, China, Arabia, and
Europe, even if the tradition was less developed in China than it was
elsewhere. This common basis may even be characterized as
'universal', provided this term is not taken to entail any strong sense
62 Esa Itkonen
5. French
It shouldphilosophizing,
be evident that as
I strongly
represented
rejectby
theFoucault
extreme relativism
and Derridaof contemporary
; cf. Itkonen
(1988b) and (1989).
Methodology of linguistics 63
1987). From this it follows, however, that not only sign languages
but also oral languages must have an ontological explanation. How
widely the linguistic (or rather, semiotic) capacity must be ultimately
understood, is still an open, and very exciting, question.
All this evidence constitutes a direct refutation of the innatist
hypothesis which flatly denies that linguistic structure can be
explained. In defending his own methodological position, Chomsky
(1986 : 249) claims that "we try to construct the best theory of all
the evidence and tentatively accept its statements as true", giving to
understand that his Government-and-Binding theory is precisely this
'best theory1. However, Chomsky simply ignores the huge amount
of cross-linguistic evidence that, having accumulated over the years,
argues for the explanation of linguistic universals. Evidence from
experimental psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and auditory
phonetics is also ignored, except on those few occasions when it
seems to agree with the GB theory. If a linguistic theory should
indeed account for all the evidence, as Chomsky claims, then his
theory is far from being the best.
The Chomsky-type innate linguistic capacity is supposedly
needed to explain the existence, and the nature, of language-
acquisition. The traditional view, represented equally by Paul,
Saussure, Jespersen, Sapir, and Bloomfield, was that language is
acquired by means of analogy. Now, analogy is thought to be a
general capacity which is equally operative in different mental
domains. Chomsky regards the mind as consisting of several quasi-
independent modules, including the linguistic capacity ; and he
strongly and repeatedly denies the usefulness of any such notion as
analogy (e.g. Chomsky 1986 : 12, 43). Fodor (1983 : 106-107) even
sets up an exclusive disjunction between modularity and analogy :
where the one is, the other cannot be ; and he specifically rules out
any analogy in language.
It should be obvious at once that our ontological explanations
refute not just innatism, but also modularity, simply because the
isomorphism between reality and language is tantamount to their
structural analogy. Yet this whole discussion has suffered from a
serious distortion of the concept of 'analogy'.
Chomsky (1986) sees a failure of analogy in each and every
case where (what he takes to be) a formal similarity is not perfectly
66 Esa Itkonen
(1) _ (3)
~
(2) ?
It is here -and only here- that the sentence (4) (= John is too
stubborn to talk to) has its rightful place. Notice that there is not
only a semantic, but also a formal analogy between (10) and (4), as
one cannot help seeing, if one only cares to keep one's eyes open.
Over the years Chomsky has used several similar examples to
disprove analogy (see e.g. CLT: 63). They have no force, however,
because they all suffer from the same defect. To put it simply, it is
the view that analogy fails because and and end, though 'formally
analogous1, fail to be semantically analogous.
As a proponent of a language-specific innate capacity,
Chomsky feels no obligation to present an algorithm for language-
acquisition. He has always claimed, however, that supporters of
analogy do have such an obligation. But why ? I am free to postulate
a non-specific innate capacity to grasp analogies (and a long series of
linguists, from Paul to Anttila, have argued eloquently that we do
have such a capacity). And if the innatism of one sort does not entail
7. Maybe Chomsky would like to argue that (6) should be a correct sentence ; that it
is not, would then speak against analogy. But this is like arguing that analogy
fails because there is no conjunction *ond similar in meaning to and.
68 Esa Itkonen
8. It should also be noted that Wittgenstein's originality has been much overrated in
this context. At least ever since Hegel, several philosophers have argued quite
convincingly for the primarily intersubjective nature of knowledge.
70 Esa Itkonen
normative
'realist' stance
data10, inhe the
requires
philosophy
-presumably
of science-
in accordance
the theoretical-
with the
9. When Chomsky (1986 : 48-49 n. 17), apparently in all seriousness, claims that in
his 1955 dissertation he was dealing with the I-language ("although the term was
not used"), i.e. that rejection of X is in fact acceptance of X, one can only
marvel at this instance of Orwellian Newspeak ; for more examples, see
Chomsky (1986 : Ch. 5).
10. In fact, the issue is not quite that simple ; cf. GTM : 8.4, and CUT: 132-135,
284-286. In this distinction
instrumentalism' context, having
does not
quoted
apply to
meautonomous
as saying that
linguistics,
the 'realism
Car oddly
vs.
concludes (p. 73) that I am "mistaken" in thinking that there is an intimate
connection between instrumentalism and autonomous linguistics. In the same
context (and also p. 28) he tries to make me out as a thorough-going relativist,
on the grounds that when I speak about the purposes (or goals) of scientific
activity, he interprets them as subjective and "arbitrarily changing purposes".
There is no basis for such an interpretation. The goals of different sciences (e.g.
autonomous linguistics, as opposed to psycholinguistics) are intersubjective
entities. They may change, but not arbitrarily. On the issue of relativism, see
also Section 4 above.
72 Esa Itkonen
REFERENCES