Clues from the depth hypothesis

• Published in: Computational linguistics - Association for Computational Linguistics 1998-12, Vol.24 (4), p.633-640
• Main Author: Yngve, Victor H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0891-2017; 1530-9312

In linguistics it has not been possible to use the standard criteria and assumptions of science because the ancients placed our discipline not in the physical domain but in the logical domain where concepts and theories do not represent parts of the natural world. Many of the problems facing linguistics follow inevitablly, for example the difficulties that linguistics experiences in agreeing on grammatical theory. One symptom is the long-standing dificulty in testing the depth hypothesis, which came out of early MT research. Sampson (1997) attempted recently to test the depth hypothesis by a computer analysis of a grammatically annotated corpus of English. It is shown that this attempted test and his attempt at defending the testability of the depth hypothesis are invalid. But clues from the depth hypothesis have led to new foundations for general linguistics put forth in the book (Yngve 1996) that Sampson (1998) reviewed. This work reconstitutes linguistics in the physical domain where the criteria and assumptions of science can be applied. Sampson's review of this book contains a number of serious errors and inaccuracies.