August 20, 2022
We finished and submitted the first proof of The Theory and Practice of Language Faculty Science a couple of weeks ago and are waiting for the second proof. We are concurrently working on the Index.

The volume, to be published from De Gruyter Mouton, with the planned publication date being November 2022, will be edited by Hoji, Plesniak and Takubo, with the following ten chapters and the Preface.

Preface (Yukinori Takubo)
Chapter 1: From Compatibility to Testability -- Some historical background (Hajime Hoji)
Chapter 2: On Non-individual-denoting so-words (Ayumi Ueyama)
Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Research heuristics in language faculty science (Emi Mukai)
Chapter 4: The key tenets of language faculty science (Hajime Hoji)
Chapter 5: Detection of c-command effects (Hajime Hoji)
Chapter 6: Replication: Predicted Correlations of Judgments in Japanese (Hajime Hoji)
Chapter 7: Predicted Correlations of Judgments in English (Daniel Plesniak)
Chapter 8: Implementing experiments on the language faculty (Daniel Plesniak)
Chapter 9: Language faculty science and physics (Hajime Hoji and Daniel Plesniak)
Chapter 10: Conclusion: Why Language Faculty Science? (Hajime Hoji and Daniel Plesniak)

August 31, 2016
I gave a couple of talks on language faculty science in Beijing in March 2016.
I gave an intensive course at Tohoku University, Japan, at the end of June 2016.

In December, language faculty science will be discussed at the upcoming symposium of 日本語文法学会 The Society of Japanese Grammar, in Kobe.

August 31, 2016
The English kindle-edition of Hoji 2013 (Issues on anaphora in Japanese) is out.
The table of contents and the newly added Preface to the volume are available here. (You should click "Look inside" on the left side of the page.)

I would like to suggest that you take a look at the Preface if you are interested in learning about (what I think of) the difference between language faculty science and linguistics (well, at least the kind of linguistics I used to do).

July 21, 2015
Update on Language Faculty Science

I have been working on the proof for about a month.
I just sent the corrections back to the production editor, who in turn will pass them to the copy-editor, the type-setter, etc.

It turned out that the proof stage involved extensive work on the Index, in addition to what would be normally expected of proof-reading. Part of the extensive work on the Index was due to the fact that the footnotes had been converted to end-notes, because there were so many footnotes..., and I decided to add an end-note number when a particular page is mentioned in Index which contains a particular term, so that the reader would not have to go through the entire page to figure out where the term is mentioned. I also revised part of the Subject index fairly extensively.

I understand that I will have the chance to see the revised manuscript during the second round of the proof, where a professional proof-reader will also go over it.

The second round of proof-reading will really be about remaining errors. So, once I receive the second proof, the publication of the book will be soon after that.

4/26/2014
The broken links in the following postings in the "Past Postings" board have been fixed:

Apr/26/2005 (13:19)  If you can read Japanese: a paper by Ayumi Ueyama on methodology [No. 21992]

May/10/2005 (05:37)  Presentation at MayFest [No. 22211] 

Mar/01/2005 (05:12)  The Kyodai Workshop handout(s) [No. 21051] 

3/30/2014
The three boards under "Discussion" are being reorganized and renamed. It may take some time to fix all that needs to be fixed...

3/28/2014 New postings in the Discuss board
I have made a couple of postings in here, one is about the title of the book and other is about its main claim. I have also made a posting there about my recent talk about Language Faculty Science at USC. I am presenting the basic idea behind Language Faculty Science at a USC Philosophy Circle meeting on 4/1, 7:00-8:30 pm, at MHP 102.

3/3/2014
With my current understanding of various issues, the organization of the Discussion boards of this website may not be optimal. I may have it changed in due time, but I will have to continue with the current organization for now.

Under the Methodology board, I created a new thread "Language Faculty Science: Methodology and Empirical Demonstration." I will make postings there about my recent book manuscript Language Faculty Science: Methodology and Empirical Demonstration. It is based on the idea I was pursuing in my 2009 book manuscript, which I did not get to publish. The basic idea can be found already in my 2003 Lingua paper. That paper was written around 2000, and the paper was an attempt to summarize my thoughts that had gone into published papers starting around 1995. My work around 1995 was a continuation of my 1990 book manuscript, which I did not publish. So, the book this time is almost 25 years overdue. (^^)

Just in case some people may be wondering if I will publish the book this time, finally, I can say this: Unless some [extraordinarily unexpected] thing happens, it will be published.

2/26/2014
The title of the book whose draft I have just completed is:
Language Faculty Science: Methodology and Empirical Demonstration

I wanted it to be:
Language Faculty Science as an Exact Science

But the publisher has the policy against having the same word appearing twice in a book title. So, I had to change it...

A small "poster" on a wall in my office at USC says:

Language Faculty Science as an Exact Science
is possible.

Yes, it is.

You may say I'm a dreamer.
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you will join us.

I also have a "poster" that says:

The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following:
The test of all knowledge is experiment.
Experiment is the sole judge of scientific "truth." Feynman 1963 (Six Easy Pieces): 2.

If you wonder how the language faculty can be studied as an exact science--by following the "Guess-Compute-Compare" method as in:

"In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is―if it disagrees with the experiment, it is wrong. That's all there is to it." (Feynman 1965/94: 150)
Feynman, Richard. 1965/1994. The character of physical law. New York: The Modern Library. (The page references are to the 1994 edition.)

you can read my book in due time.

If you think, "Well, what about simplicity, elegance and beauty of the theory?," you can also read my book in due time.

2/26/2014
A book containing 7 of my past papers has recently been published in Japan.
It contains the following papers:

Chapter 1: Demonstrative Binding and Principle B
Chapter 2: Null Object and Sloppy Identity in Japanese
Chapter 3: Sloppy Identity and Formal Dependency
Chapter 4: Sloppy Identity and Principle B
Chapter 5: Formal Dependency, Organization of Grammar, and Japanese Demonstratives
Chapter 6: Surface and Deep Anaphora, Sloppy Identity, and Experiments in Syntax
Chapter 7: Falsifiability and Repeatability in Generative Grammar: A Case Study of Anaphora and Scope Dependency in Japanese

It also has an Index, which is very useful to have, well, at least for me.

If you can read Japanese, you can visit this page and read the Preface/Forward by Yuki Takubo and the Epilogue (Atogaki) and one other piece by Ayumi Ueyama.

I plan to prepare papers or a book in which I critically discuss the papers compiled in this volume by following the methodology I am pursuing for language faculty science as an exact science.

New postings have been made in the Further Discussion board, under [37679]. (3/11/2012)

A few postings have been added to the Generalizations board. (3/1/2012)

A few postings have been made in the Methodology board, under old threads. (2/29/2012)

Research Interests have been revised for the first time since 11/7/2008. (2/28/2012)

New posting in the the Generalizations board. (2/25/2012)
The "Description" currently given for the Generalizations Board is not quite correct; change will be made soon.

A new posting in the the Generalizations board. (2/23/2012)

I have made a few postings in the Generalizations board. (2/18/2012)

More postings in the Methodology board. (2/10/2012)

There is a new posting in the Methodology board, providing the beginning of the draft of chapter one of the book I am working on.
It is entitled: Language Faculty Science: how it becomes an exact science―a proposal and illustration.
I plan to add more materials there under that posting. (2/5/2012)

Hoji 2006, which Mukai to appear makes reference to is available here. (2/5/2012)
The paper is also available at "Downloadable Papers."

Mukai, Emi (to appear) "Representational Approach vs. Derivational Approach," WECOL 2012 is available here. (2/4/2012)

There are some corrections posted concerning the JJL 2010 paper at the "Further Discussion" board. (4/11/2011)

Mukai's "Bound Variable Construal with a 'Discontinuous' Binder" contains a small portion of what will be included in Emi Mukai's forthcoming USC dissertation. It gives you an idea about how the methodology advocated in Hoji 2011 (JJL) and elsewhere for language faculty science can be rigorously applied to the study of a certain "phenomena" pertaining to (or including) so-called floating numerals in Japanese. If you have any questions on the content of the paper, please feel free to let us know.

A draft version of the paper is available here.

Bound Variable Construal with a 'Discontinuous' Binder

Emi Mukai
University of Southern California

Key words:
Japanese, Floating numerals, Bound Variable Construal

Abstract:
A combination of a floating numeral and its host NP can be taken as a binder. We call such a binder a 'discontinuous' binder. The main issue of this paper is how the Bound Variable Construal with a 'discontinuous' binder should be constrained. We claim, contrary to Hoji & Ishii 2004, that it is the positions of the host NP and the bindee (i.e., arguments) at LF, not that of floating numerals, that are crucial for the availability of the construal in question.
　We present evidence in support of the claim by investigating what we call the 'non-local' cases, where the subject precedes the object, and the object precedes the floating numeral whose host NP is the subject as in NP_Subj (=host NP) NP_Obj floating-numeral V-T.
　We also discuss Miyagawa & Arikawa's 2007 account of the (un)acceptable status of the 'non-local' cases. We show that their proposal that the surface Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order can correspond to two distinct types of LF representations makes wrong predictions and conclude that the SOV order necessarily corresponds to the LF representation in which S asymmetrically c-commands O, as has been widely accepted in the field.
***

The paper presents a small portion of what will be included in Emi Mukai's forthcoming USC dissertation. It gives you an idea about how the methodology advocated (thought not presented or illustrated fully) in Hoji 2010 (JJL) for language faculty science can be rigorously applied to the study of certain "phenomena" pertaining to (or including) so-called floating numerals in Japanese. If you have any questions on the content of the paper, please feel free to let us know.

The URL of the page where Hoji 2010 "Hypothesis testing in generative grammar: Evaluation of predicted schematic asymmetries" can be downloaded as has been copied from the "What's new" page to the "Downloadable Paper" page, along with the caveat about the paper.

"Hypothesis testing in generative grammar: Evaluation of predicted schematic asymmetries" Journal of Japanese Linguistics 26.

A slightly altered version of the paper is available here.

***Abstract***
This paper explores how the hypothetico-deductive method can be applied to research concerned with the properties of the language faculty. The paper first discusses how we can try to identify informant judgments that are likely a reflection of properties of the Computational System (or properties of the language faculty that are directly related to the Computational System), proposes a method of hypothesis testing in line with the hypothetico-deductive method, and provides an illustration by examining the predictions made under the lexical hypothesis that otagai in Japanese is a local anaphor.
***

Due to the pace limit, the empirical illustration of the proposed methodology is severely limited and the conceptual justification of certain crucial aspects of the proposed methodology is also not as satisfactory as it could have been if I had more space. The abstract of a longer version of the paper, which is at the moment entitled as "Point-Value Predictions in Language Faculty Science: Suggestions and Illustration" is:

***Abstract of "Point-Value Predictions in Language Faculty Science: Suggestions and Illustration" (as of 10/27/2010)***
This paper is concerned with how hypotheses about the language faculty can be made testable. Adopting the general model of the Computational System in Chomsky 1993, a model of judgment-making suggested in Ueyama 2010, and a research heuristic "Maximize our chances of learning from errors," the paper suggests how we can try to identify what is likely a reflection of properties of the Computational System hypothesized at the center of the language faculty. Testability pursued here is in terms of "point-value predictions" rather than predictions about a difference or a tendency. The paper argues, as a consequence of the three starting assumptions, that it is indeed possible to obtain categorical judgments in our experiments, but only if we recognize a fundamental asymmetry between a *Schema-based prediction and an okSchema-based prediction. The paper provides some illustration by applying the suggested method to specific hypotheses, and by making reference to results of on-line experiments.
***

The paper starts with:

***
Linguistics is often said to be a scientific study of language, and generative grammar a scientific study of the language faculty. While some people might consider the mention of "scientific" rhetorical, others maintain that it is not. To the extent that we indeed wish to be engaged in a scientific research program that is concerned with the properties of the language faculty, it is worth considering how our hypotheses about the language faculty can be made testable and how we can aspire to make our research program "scientific."
　　　In the generative tradition, the main goal of our research is understood to a discovery of the properties of the Computational System, hypothesized to be at the center of the language faculty. It is furthermore assumed that a major source of evidence for or against our hypotheses is informant judgments. Despite a wide acceptance of this assumption, however, the field has so far failed to seriously consider in what way informant judgments can be revealing about the properties of the Computational System, let alone come up with an answer that the majority of the field can agree upon. Chomsky 1986: 36, for example, remarks, "In general, informant judgments do not reflect the structure of the language directly; judgments of acceptability, for example, may fail to provide direct evidence as to grammatical status because of the intrusion of numerous other factors," and it has remained unclear exactly what should qualify as evidence for or against our hypotheses about the language faculty, how we can identify such evidence, and hence how we can put our hypotheses to rigorous empirical test._FN1
　　　The main thesis of this paper is that we can pursue language faculty science as an "exact science," in which we can extract reproducible phenomena and analyze them quantitatively. This goes directly against the common perception that informants' (including researchers' own) introspective judgments are subject to across-informant and within-informant variation and fluctuation. The paper is thus concerned with how we can extract reproducible phenomena and analyze them quantitatively in language faculty science. One can thus view the main aim of the paper as providing a basic tool in language faculty science in response to Anderson's (20008: 812) "whimper" that "we need better tools of investigation" in language faculty science.

FN1: Since the inception of generative grammar in the 1950s, there has been concern about in what way our hypotheses with regard to the Computational System of the language faculty can be put to (rigorous) empirical test. Chomsky's remarks on the relation between acceptability and grammaticality, which are frequently found in his writings until about the mid 1970s, can be understood to be a manifestation of his own concern. A number of publications in the late 1960s and in the 1970s addressed the issue (e.g., many of the articles included in Cohen 1974, Cohen and Wirth 1975, and Eckman 1977); see Schütze 1996 for an extensive literature review. Concerns seem to have resurfaced in recent years; cf. the 2005 special issue of Lingua on "Data in Theoretical Linguistics," the 2007 special issue of Theoretical Linguistics volume on "Data in generative grammar," Devitt 2006, and Fitzgerald 2010, among many others.
***

What is crucial but is not discussed in much depth at all in "Hypothesis testing in generative grammar: Evaluation of predicted schematic asymmetries" includes the significance of "preliminary experiments." The issue is closely related to the so-called Duhem-Quine thesis and the fact that our testable predictions concerning properties of the Computational System of the language faculty must be made on the basis of, at least, two types of hypotheses, one universal and the other language-particular. The illustration in the paper includes discussion of three (sets of) hypotheses:

(i) the lexical hypothesis about so vs. a demonstratives
(ii) the lexical hypotheses about so-called local anaphors in Japanese
(iii) the universal hypothesis about a necessary structural (i.e., LF c-command) condition for a formal relation that underlies a certain type of dependency intuitions.

The predictions made under each of (i)-(iii) appear to be disconfirmed. See Aoshima, Sachiko, Yoshida, Masaya, and Phillips, Collin. 2009. Incremental processing of coreference and binding in Japanese. Syntax 12.2: 93-134 for such experimental results with regard to (i) and (iii) and "Hypothesis testing in generative grammar: Evaluation of predicted schematic asymmetries" contains experimental results with regard to (ii). One of the main empirical points in "Point-Value Predictions in Language Faculty Science: Suggestions and Illustration" is as follows: the prediction made under (i) is supported once we pay close attention to the designs of experiments; likewise, the prediction made under (iii) is supported once we pay attention to preliminary experiments; but in the case of the predictions made under (ii), an attempt to save them actually results in a worse case of disconfirmation.

Hoji 1985 and Hoji 1990 will be made available on-line very soon.
They are available here.

Hoji 1985 and Hoji 1990 will be made available on-line very soon.

"Evaluating the Lexical Hypothesis about Otagai" (to appear) in Linguistic Research (a journal published in Seoul) has been made available in the "Downlodable Papers" page.

The handout for the 12/11 talk will be something like this.

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 (A Colloquium on Generative Grammar) (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

This talk will also be at:
Konkuk University, College of Liberal Arts Facult Research Building Rm#301.

The same place as the 12/11 talk.

Handout Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty: A proposal and implications, is a revised version of Handout #1 in my Syntax Seminar at USC in the fall of 2009, which is a substantially revised version of the handouts used for my talks in Kyoto University and the one at Kyushu University in May 2009.

Although it does not contain empirical illustration of my proposal, it should give people some idea about the proposal, to be discussed in various ways, in my talks in Seoul and Fukuoka in the coming two weeks.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

It will be at:
"Moonkwadae Kyosooyeongoodong #301" (College of Liberal Arts, Faculty Research Building Rm#301)

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 (A Colloquium on Generative Grammar) (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

The abstract is:

In the seventh lecture of his 1964 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University, Richard Feynman states: "In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science." How we can approach the language faculty in accordance with this general scientific method is the main topic of my talk. I start with the basic assumptions about the Computational System, testability and learning from errors. More specifically, my starting assumptions are (i) that at the center of the language faculty is the Computational System as suggested in Chomsky 1993, (ii) that we want to ensure testability for our hypotheses, and (iii) we want to maximize our chances of learning from disconfirmation of our predictions. Adopting these basic assumptions leads to a particular method, called the Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry method. I will first provide its conceptual justification. I will then provide initial illustration of the method by making reference to 'local anaphors' and bound variable anaphora in Japanese. On the basis of this, I will proceed to provide further illustration by addressing the so-called scrambling constructions in Japanese, comparing Ueyama 1998: chap 2; 2003 and Saito 2003. The last illustration of the proposed method is concerned with Miyagawa and Arikawa 2007.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

The abstract is:

Linguistics is often said to be a scientific study of language. However, it seems to be unclear to many people in what sense it is "scientific." What does studying "language" in a "scientific" way mean? One might even wonder if it is possible to do so. In this talk, I address these and related questions. I suggest the minimal requirement that must be met in research concerned with a discovery of the properties of the language faculty insofar as we are interested in making our hypotheses testable and insofar as we want to maximize our chances of learning from the failure of our predictions. The talk consists of (i) conceptual justification of the proposed method (the Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) method), (ii) illustration of the general design of experiments and how the results of an experiment get sorted out, and (iii) actual experiments on some hypotheses and their results.

I will be giving three talks in Seoul and one talk in Fukuoka this month, as indicated below.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 A Colloquium on Generative Grammar (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

12/13 (Sun) The 8th Korea-Japan Workshop on Linguistics and Language Processing
Kyung Hee University, Seoul
CheongWoon Bldg. Room 506
"The Absence of (Local) Anaphors in Japanese: Empirical Demonstration and its Significance" (4:05-4:40)

12/15 (Tue) at Kyushuu University
"Predicted Schematic Asymmetries"
(I do not know the room number.)

12/4/2009
Handout #1 has been further revised.

9/9/2009
Handout #1 was slightly revised.

9/5/2009
In the "Further Discussion" board (in Discussion) I have provided the URL of Handout #1 in my Syntax Seminar this semester.

6/22/2009
I have made a posting in the "Further Discussion" board (in Discussion) where I have provided the URLs of the handouts used for my Keio presentation and for one of the presentations at Tohoku University. Contrary to what I noted on 6/3/2009 (see below), the Keio talk was a slightly extended version of Tohoku Talk3; cf. [37261] in the "Further Discussion" board in Discuss.

6/10/2009
I will try to upload the handouts of "Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty: a proposal and implications" and "Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science: its goal and how it can be pursued -- with some historical reflections" shortly after the presentations.

6/3/2009
The schedule of my talks at Tohoku Univ. is as follows.

(1) June 12, from 14:40 to 17:50
Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty:
a proposal and implications

(2) June 13, from 9:40 to 10:20 (30 minutes for the talk and 10
minutes for discussion)
Displacement in Natural Language: a case study of Japanese and its implications

(3) June 15, from 14:40 to 16:10
Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science: its goal and how it can be pursued -- with some historical reflections

I do not have the info. concerning the locations.

My Keio talk is scheduled to start at 4:30 pm. (June 17)
At Keio Mita Campus, Higashikan 6F G-SEC Lab.

I do not know how long the talk will be; but I am pretty sure that I will have (at least) 2 hours.

The announced title of my Keio talk is:
A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science

But I may use the same title as the first talk at Tohoku Univ. (see above), which is the same as the second talk at Kyodai and the talk at Kyudai in May. The Keio talk will be basically the same as the first talk at Tohoku Univ. I have been, and will be further, modifying the handout as I continue to present the materials at different places.

5/8/2009
I will give a talk in Seoul on 12/13(Sun) and perhaps two more talks on 12/11(Fr) and 12/12(Sat).

5/3/2009 (slightly modified on 5/8/2008)
I will be giving two talks at Kyoto Univ. on 5/18(Mon) and 5/19(Tue).
The titles of the talks are:

(i) A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science
(ii) A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty

I will also give a talk at Kyushu Univ. on 5/23(Sat). The title of that talk is most likely the same as (i) above.

I am giving a couple of talks in Japan in June. At Tohoku Univ. on 6/12(Fr) and at Keio Univ. on 6/17(Th). The title of the talks is the same as (i) above, i.e., the same as the title of my book manuscript.

I will give another talk at Tohoku Univ on On 6/13(Sat). I have not decided on the title. But it is most likely going to be about "displacement" in Japanese.

5/8/2009
The book manuscript A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science was submitted to a publisher in January and it has been under review.

3/20/2009
I have added a link to Teru Fukaya's 2007 doctoral dissertation at "Works by Teruhiko Fukaya."

1/16/2009
I have added one more posting in the Methodology board, whose content is: If you would like to take a look at the draft, please email me.

1/10/2009
In the Methodology board, I have made a few more postings.

1/9/2009
In the Methodology board, I have provided an updated table of contents of the book I am about to submit to a publisher; the book now contains Appendix after the five chapters. Another posting in the same board mentions four topics that are not going to be covered in the book.

12/5/2008
I have made a new posting "The position of Chomsky on methodology" in the Methodology board.

11/30/2008
I have posted in the Methodology board the table of contents of the book manuscript as of 11/30/2008.

11/11/2008
I have added one posting in the Methodology board.

10/22/2008
A few more postings have been added since 10/7.

10/7/2008
I have added one more brief posting there.

9/25/2008
I have created a thread "Sneak previews of the book I hope I will soon finish" in the Methodology board in Discuss. Some postings will be made on the content of the book.

10/30/2008
A revised version, submitted to the publisher, has been uploaded, replacing the previous version. If you have downloaded the paper before, please be aware that the previous version contains some errors that have been corrected in the version currently available.

8/28/2008
"Model of Judgment Making and Hypotheses in Generative Grammar" by Ayumi Ueyama, to appear in 17th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, CSLI, Stanford, has been uploaded in the "Works by Ayumi Ueyama" page.

8/27/2008
I was on sabbatical for the entire 2007-2008 academic year, trying to complete my book manuscript. During the sabbatical year, I refrained from making postings here. Now that the classes started at USC, I will start posting things here again.

Although I was not able to complete the book manuscript before the sabbatical was over, I have chapters 1-3 and 5 more or less finished. I think the title of the book will be:

A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science

In due time, I will upload the drafts of the chapters here and also try to post the main points of each chapter.

2/20/2007
The remarks, on the "Downloadable Papers" page, re. Hoji&Ishii 2004 (WCCFL 23) have been made slightly more informative, in regard to their citation-related aspect.

1/31/2007
A couple of new postings have been made in the Methodology board.

1/23/2007
My Kyodai lectures will be 1-3pm and 3:30-5:30pm each day, 2/14-2/16/2006.
Further info. should be available at: http://www.hmn.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/langlogic/index.html (in due time).

1/17/2007
The content of the "Research Interests" page has been updated for the first time since 2003. One new posting has been added in the Generalizations board.

1/13/2007
The following is posted at a Kyodai website (http://www.hmn.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/langlogic/index.html).
For further discussion, please visit the other Discussion boards at this HP. I will try to provide remarks directly related to what is given below in the Further Discussion board.

***
Hoji Kyodai Lectures (2/14-2/16/2006)
Assessing Hypotheses in Generative Grammar

A fundamental working hypothesis in generative grammar is the existence of the language faculty, understood as an algorithm whose input is a set of items taken from the mental Lexicon of the speaker and whose output is a pair of mental representations - one underlying 'meaning' and the other 'sounds'. The main goal of generative grammar can thus be understood as demonstrating the existence of such an algorithm and discovering its properties. Construed in this way, it is not language as an external 'object' but the language faculty that constitutes the object of inquiry. In the terms of the distinction made by Chomsky in the 1960s, generative grammar is concerned with competence rather than with performance.
　　The data in actual research activities in generative grammar, however, is based on acceptability judgments on a given sentence, whether they are introspective judgments by the researchers or their informants or observation of various other types of reactions by 'subjects' in an experimental setting. I.e., what we deal with in an attempt to discover the properties of the speaker/hearer's competence (the Computational System) is his/her performance (i.e., language use, in a broad sense). This makes it crucial, in the context of generative grammatical inquiry as construed above, to articulate how we can extract from performance data evidence for a hypothesis about the properties of the Computational System. The absence of a minimally satisfactory articulation of how to do this is likely to lead to a situation where different (groups of) researchers base their proposals about the Computational System on different sets of speaker judgments, collected in a variety of ways, that are not necessarily uniform or robust, being subject to a great deal of fluctuation and variation not only among speakers but also within a single speaker. This makes it difficult to evaluate competing proposals in a reliable and objective manner. Recent debates in leading journals (e.g., Language, Lingua and Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) about what should qualify as data, about the use of introspective judgments as crucial evidence for or against a theory, etc. seem to suggest that we have not yet developed a means to evaluate the empirical bases of hypotheses in generative grammar that is compelling enough to the majority of the practitioners. An evaluation of a given hypothesis thus tends to have an arbitrary aspect to it, influenced by such factors as whether or not the terms and concepts utilized are of a theory currently in fashion and whether or not it endorses the standard view concerning the validity of alleged empirical generalizations, regardless of how much 'repeatability' obtains in regard to the predicted speaker judgments on the crucial sentences.
　　In my lectures, I will try to review some of the efforts over the past decade to overcome the problem just noted, including some articulation of a concrete means to evaluate (not to arrive at) hypotheses in generative grammar, making specific reference to Japanese as its empirical basis for an illustration of its methodological point. The methodological aspects of its results should be applicable to research on other languages, as long as it deals with interpretations that are claimed to be based crucially on properties of the Computational System.
　　When one aims at discovering the properties of the language faculty as construed above, one must recognize the following: the Computational System's yielding something as its output does not guarantee that the speaker finds it (more precisely, finds its surface manifestation) to be acceptable; after all, non-grammatical as well as grammatical factors must contribute to the ultimate acceptability judgment by the speaker on a given sentence form under a specified interpretation (e.g., one's knowledge about the world, one's belief system, and the like). The Computational System's failure to yield something as its output, on the other hand, should necessarily mean that the 'sentence form' corresponding to such a 'failed representation' should be judged unacceptable under the specified interpretation. If something is predicted to be impossible due to the hypothesized formal properties of the Computational System under discussion, how can some pragmatic adjustment save it? Only by taking this point to heart and by putting forth a hypothesis so as to yield a negative prediction (the prediction that something is impossible (under a specified interpretation)), do we have a hope of making generative grammar an empirical science or of making it a progressive research program in the sense of Lakatos 1970.
　　The major concerns underlying the research reported here are:

(i)　a. 　How can we try to ensure and measure progress in what we do in generative grammar?
　　b. 　How can we tell whether or not given intuitions of ours are likely to be a reflection of the Computational System?

　　Not every observation qualifies as something that must be accounted for by a theory about the Computational System; it must first be demonstrated that it is most likely a reflection of the Computational System. And, for the reasons briefly noted above and further elaborated elsewhere (e.g., Hoji 2006), to do so would require the recognition of the significance of negative predictions insofar as the research in question is aimed at demonstrating the existence of and discovering properties of the Computational System, which is hypothesized to be at the core of the language faculty. This is the central methodological claim in the research reported here and the lectures are meant to illustrate its content and how it relates to actual empirical materials.

Day 1 (2/14) (Bungakubu Higashikan Lecture Room 4)
Session 1
How (I think) we should proceed if the aim of our research is to demonstrate the existence of and discover the properties of the Computational System that is hypothesized at the core of the language faculty. I will try to provide a brief overview of how we have proceeded to isolate certain linguistic intuitions that are likely based on the Computational System. Coreference to BVA (bound variable anaphora) and any BVA to FD-based BVA (i.e., BVA that is based on a c-command relation at LF), and how we have come to identify FD-based BVA, what problems we have faced and are still facing in doing so, how we have tested our hypotheses, and how the FD-based-BVA has been related to other phenomena (such as FD-sloppy readings and local disjointness effects).

Session 2
How one could fail to do what should be done, according to the discussion in Session 1. I will also address general issues of the failure to pay (serious) attention to negative predictions, falsifiability, repeatability, etc., and its consequences (as observed in the field). I will try to go over some correlations among different types of research practice, which seem to me to stem from different types of research orientations and goals.

Day 2 (2/15) (Bungakubu Shinkan Lecture Room 1)
Session 3
Concrete illustration of the methodological points made in Sessions 1 and 2, including how to assess hypotheses in generative grammar -- given that the research goal is as described in Sessions 1 and 2 -- by making reference to two competing analyses of the so-called scrambling construction in Japanese (Ueyama 1998 and Saito 2003). Attempts will also be made to illustrate how one might proceed when one faces apparent disconfirmation of one's negative prediction. The audience will be asked, but not forced, to participate in a series of experiments in class and also on-line afterwards.

Session 4
Questions and comments from the audience, their articulation and responses.
Potential topics to cover, if the time remains, include: (i) attempts to 'apply' the binding theory to Japanese, (ii) quantifier scope, (iii) negation, (iv) ellipsis, and (v) the Subjacency effects and anaphoric dependency. Depending upon how the discussion goes, I may go over some of these topics in relation to the methodological and empirical points made in Sessions 1-3.

Day 3 (2/16) (Bungakubu Shinkan Lecture Room 1)
Session 5
The topics to be chosen from what is listed above for Session 4.

Session 6
Concluding remarks. Reiterating the main concerns and the proposals.

Readings:
General: Hoji 2003.
Day One: The handouts by Ueyama and Hoji for the 2006 Hokudai Kagaku tetsugakkai workshop, Hoji 1997/2006, and Hoji 2006.
Day Two: Ueyama 2002, Saito 2003, Hoji et al. 1999.
Day Three: (It is not clear what will actually be covered in the lectures.) Hayashishita 2004: Chap. 2, 2.2.1, Kataoka 2007 (to appear in Gengokenkyuu).

Hoji 1997/2006, 2003, 2006, Hoji et al 1999, Ueyama 2002, and Hayashishita 2004 are available on-line. Please visit http://www.gges.xyz/hoji/research/hp-papers.cgi for the first four, and for Ueyama 2002 and Hayashishita 2004, please go to http://www.gges.xyz/hoji/research/hp-Ayumi.cgi and http://enteroflora.com/linguistics/dissertation.html, respectively. For Kataoka 2007, please email me at hoji@usc.edu.

Hayashishita, J.-R. 2004. Syntactic and Non-Syntactic Scope, Doctoral dissertation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
Hoji, H. 1997/2006 "Otagai," Ms. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. [Presented at WCCFL 16, University of Washington, March 1997.] Published in A. Ueyama (ed.), 2006. Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora-Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Kyushu University, pp. 126-138.
Hoji, H. 2003. "Falsifiability and Repeatability in Generative Grammar: A Case Study of Anaphora and Scope Dependency in Japanese." Lingua 113/4-6, pp. 377-446.
Hoji, H. 2006. "Two Hypotheses about Scrambling in Japanese," in A. Ueyama (ed)., Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora-Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Kyushu University, pp. 139-185.
Hoji, H., S. Kinsui, Y. Takubo, and A. Ueyama 1999. "Demonstratives, Bound Variables, and Reconstruction Effects." in Proceedings of the Nanzan GLOW, The Second GLOW Meeting in Asia, September 19-22, 1999. pp. 141-158.
Kataoka, K. 2007. "Negをc-統御する不定語+モ," 『言語研究』131 号 (2007年 3 月刊行予定).
Lakatos, I. 1970. "Falsification and Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press. pp. 91-195.
Saito, M. 2003. "A Derivational Approach to the Interpretation of Scrambling Chains," Lingua 113/4-6, pp.481-518.
Ueyama, A. 1998. Two Types of Dependency. Doctoral dissertation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. (Distributed by GSIL publications. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.)
Ueyama, A. 2002. "Two Types of Scrambling Constructions," in A. Barss (ed.), Anaphora: A Reference Guide, Blackwell.

12/4/2006
I have made another posting on the alleged generalization about zibunzisin in the Generalizations board.

12/1/2006
I will give lectures at Kyoto University next year, 2/14-2/16, 2007. The topic of the lectures will be what I have been discussing here for some time, especially for the past several months. More info. will be provided later, including the URL of the Kyodai website where the time/place of the lectures will be announced (and drafts of the lecture handouts as well, if possible).

11/22/2006
I have posted some remarks on the alleged generalization about zibunzisin in the Generalization board. It makes reference to some postings in the Methodology board (posted on 11/21/2006), but it should not require technical knowledge to understand the point.