실험통사론의 형식적 연구방법에 대한 고찰: 영어 수용성 판단 중심으로

Abstract

Ever since Chomsky set rationalism as philosophical basis for the study of the language faculty, a linguist’s introspective, intuitive judgment on (un)grammatical sentences in his/her language has been considered as standard methodology in generative grammar. Though convenient, such informal method of judgment has caused intense controversy for the lack of reliability on the data (s)he has collected through the history of generative grammar (Hill 1961, Spencer 1973, Ross 1979). The main concern of this paper is to show how the formal method of experiment can more rationally approach such issues as validity and reliability of data, differences in acceptability judgment, and gradience in acceptability judgement (Schütze 1996, Cowart 1997, Sprouse 2007a, b). After reviewing the long-standing debates on methodology of data collection in generative grammar, I put forward four key reasons for syntax to adopt the formal method of experiment from the theory-internal perspective, and further predict where experimental syntax should eventually go.