Probabilities without Paradigm-Shifting: Recognizing Gradience in Natural Language Syntax
Ross Kirsling · 2012
It is no secret that natural language is gradient in nature. Indeed, the topic of gradience has been receiving a growing amount of attention within linguistics in recent years. An example of particular note is Bod et al. (2003), a collection that illustrates how gradient phenomena may be approached in various subfields of linguistics—not only psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language change, but also the so-called “core” subfields of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. In spite of this increased awareness, it is also quite clear that the penetration of gradience into the theoretical mainstream has been met with substantial resistance, and categorical methodology has merely begun to loosen its grasp. Yet recognizing gradience does not imply that a syntactician already working in the generative paradigm need abandon their present framework. The aim of this squib is to show that the adoption of probability theory into syntax allows for a natural incorporation of this fundamental aspect of human language, irrespective of paradigm.