推 cuteray:最後一句相當中肯，推～ 08/09 21:11
自從二十世紀後期，語言學就進入了百家爭鳴的時代，
各種新的理論、思維和潮流層出不窮，
雖然各學派相互影響、相互激盪，但是不少學者仍舊有很深的門戶之見，
語法學家Andrew Carnie在著作《Syntax: A Generative Introduction》，
第一版文字當中透露出許多自己個人的看法和感想，
在這裡摘錄部分跟大家分享....
(第二版以後就修去了比較個人情感方面的文字，
雖然看起來更像一本理性的教科書，但卻失去讀者一窺作者身為語言學家的感觸...)
(p.371-372)
CHOOSING AMONG THEORIES
[...]
We briefly turn now to the very thorny question of which theoretical
approach is right. If you ask this question at any major syntax
conference you are likely to get lynched. Most linguists hold to their
theories the way religious fanatics follow their beliefs or the way
nationalists feel about their countries. I admit that I personally
am guilty of this at times. [....]
Unfortunately, there is rarely rational dialog on the question of
what theoretical approaches are the best. At the same time, the theories
quite liberally borrow from one another. [....] Now it is true that to
a greater or lesser degree the different theories make different
empirical predictions. One might think that on empirical grounds alone,
you should be able to choose the right theory. However, if you take this
approach you are treading on dangerous ground, for two reasons. First,
while one thoery provides a nice account of one part of syntax, another
theory will do better at a different component, so you have to carefully
balance what parts of syntax are the most important. Second, some
theoretical approaches are better worked out than others. More people
work in P&P/Minimalism than in the other approaches, so the empirical
coverage of that theory is unsurprisingly greater. You might think
instead that we can compare the theories on the ground of elegance or
precision. [....] But this doesn't cut it either: Precision or elegance
does not necessarily mean that the theory is an accurate representation
of human Language. In fact, the only real grounds along which we could
ever accurately gauge the correctness of a theory is on the basis of how
well it models how Language works in the mind or brain. Despite some
scholars' claim to the contray, we are long way from being able to test
such modeling reliably. I suspect that when we do, we'll discover that
all of our theories are wrong in many important respects. In the meantime,
we're left with a number of theoretical approaches that do roughly the
same range of work, for the same basic goals. Instead of trying to
determine which one is "right" (probably a fruitless work), it is better
to understand the advantages of each approach, and the insights they give
us into the nature of human Language.
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