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Differences between linguists and nonlinguists in intuitions of grammaticality-acceptability
1Psychology Department, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
|November 8, 2013
Summary
Linguists
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Sociolinguistics
Background:
- Transformational grammar relies on linguists' intuitions for rule construction.
- The validity of these intuitions for common language is questioned.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether native speakers share linguists' intuitions.
- To determine if linguistic rules accurately reflect natural language usage.
Main Methods:
- 150 exemplar sentences from linguistic articles were presented to native speakers.
- Participants included linguistically naive and nonnaive individuals.
- Sentence acceptability judgments were collected.
Main Results:
- Native speakers showed high agreement (80%) on sentence acceptability.
- Shared intuitions between linguists and native speakers occurred in only 50% of cases.
Conclusions:
- Linguists' intuitions may not represent the common language.
- Consulting nonlinguists is recommended to validate linguistic rules and ensure they reflect the broader speech community's language structure.
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