Читать книгу The Historiography of Generative Linguistics - András Kertész - Страница 12

Since the second half of the 1960s, numerous works have been published which call Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures ›revolutionaryrevolutionary‹ in KuhnKuhn, Thomas S.’s sense (ThorneThorne, James Peter 1965; LeiberLeiber, Justin 1975; YerginYergin, Daniel 1994 [1972]; SklarSklar, Robert 1994 [1968]; SearleSearle, John R. 1972; KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad 1978 [1972]; NewmeyerNewmeyer, Frederick J. 1986a; VidanovičVidanovič, Đorđe 2006 and others). To our knowledge, Thorne (1965: 74) was the first to claim explicitly that »[…] a revolution of the kind Kuhn describes has recently taken place in linguistics – dating from the publication of ChomskyChomsky, Noam’s Syntactic Structures in 1957«. Searle – drawing public attention to Chomsky’s personality and the significance of his early work – states in his famous article, which appeared in The New York Review of Books, that Chomsky’s

revolution followed fairly closely the general pattern described in Thomas KuhnKuhn, Thomas S.’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: the accepted model or ›paradigmparadigm‹ of linguistics was confronted, largely by ChomskyChomsky, Noam’s work, with increasing numbers of nagging counterexamples and recalcitrant datadata which the paradigm could not deal with. Eventually the counter-examples led Chomsky to break the old model altogether and to create a completely new one (SearleSearle, John R. 1972: 16).

SearleSearle, John R.’s article deserves special attention.1 If a widely-acclaimed scholar such as Searle who, as is well-known, represents significantly different views from those of ChomskyChomsky, Noam, acknowledges Chomsky’s work as revolutionaryrevolutionary and does so in a journal that is so widely read, then the public may consider his judgment reliable and this will effectively shape the reception of his work.2

In order to demonstrate an important circumstance for developing possible solutions to (P), now we will focus on KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad (1978) among the numerous contributions which claim that Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures led to a new KuhnianKuhnian paradigmparadigm in linguistics. The reason why it is instructive to review Koerner’s approach is that later it went through numerous changes insofar as in several further papers Koerner considered other possibilities as well; therefore, his contribution to the discussions illustrates the plasticity and the vagueness of the term ›ChomskyChomsky, Noam’s revolution‹, as well as the complexity of the problems that it raises (see e.g. Koerner 2004: 2).

After analyzing the work of Schleicher, Saussure and ChomskyChomsky, Noam, KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad (1978) concludes that the conditions that enable us to talk about a KuhnianKuhnian paradigmparadigm are met in all three cases.3 Koerner’s thesis can be summarized as follows:

(T1)	As a result of the ›climate of opinion‹climate of opinion, Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures triggered a scientificscientific revolutionrevolutionscientific in linguistics in Kuhn’Kuhn, Thomas S.s sense and led to a new paradigm.paradigm4

KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad supports this claim with two considerations:

First, he argues that while ChomskyChomsky, Noam’s generative linguistics and Saussure’s structuralismstructuralism share common features, the theorytheory that was introduced in Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures has features which also differ from those of Saussure. KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad highlights three elements of Saussure’s view that are, in his opinion, to be found in Chomsky’s work: Saussure’s keen interest in mathematicsmathematical, his rationalism and his psychologism. At the same time, he also analyses the differences which, in his view, support the revolutionaryrevolutionary nature of Chomsky’s theory. He points out that in the works Chomsky published a few years after the appearance of Syntactic Structures, Chomsky emphasizes the dynamic nature of synchrony by referring to Humboldt and stressing the creativity of grammargrammar. Koerner believes that it is due to this dynamism that in a short timeframe Chomsky’s theory had made a great impact, not only on linguistics, but also on sociology and psychology, and this impact led to what KuhnKuhn, Thomas S. would describe as the redefinition of the discipline. In addition, Chomsky further developed Saussure’s categories – above all, later in AspectsAspects he reinterpreted the Saussurean term of ›langue‹ as ›competence‹. Finally, Chomsky adopted terms from symbolic logiclogic (following primarily Quine, Carnap and Reichenbach) and mathematics (Russell, Whitehead, Shannon and Weaver). Of course, these terms were not at Saussure’s disposal at the beginning of the 20th century.

KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad’s second argument is that although Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures could not remain unaffected by American structuralismstructuralism, it reflected the ›climate of opinionclimate of opinion‹ which was characteristic of the natural sciencesciencenaturals in the 1950s, but which American structuralism was not ready to embrace (Koerner 1978 [1972]: 42; for further discussion, see OteroOtero, Carlos P. 1994). This climate of opinion had the following characteristics:5

 as mentioned, the application of the formalformal methods of mathematicsmathematical and symbolic logiclogic to linguistic theorizing;

 the primacy of theorytheory over datadata;

 following the example of physicalphysics theories, the development of a deductivedeductive theorytheory in linguistics, and the rejection of the methodologymethodology which is restricted to inductiveinductive datadata collection and classification;

 the simplicitysimplicity and the eleganceelegance of theorizing as methodological guiding principles;

 the pursuit of scientificscientific explanations based on general laws; and

 the rejection of the kind of empiricism represented in American structuralismstructuralism.

Accordingly, KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad claims that the reason why Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures was of a revolutionaryrevolutionary nature and resulted in a new paradigmparadigm is not that ChomskyChomsky, Noam created something »ex nihilo« (Koerner 1978: 44), but rather, that he understood and adapted the ›climate of opinionclimate of opinion‹ in a creative and genuine manner; that he was able to apply to linguistics the methodological model of physicsphysics, which was considered the peak of scientificscientific rigor; and that from all these he developed an unprecedented theoretical construct immediately taken up by its adherents.6

Thus KoernerKoerner, E.F. Konrad (1978 [1972]) provides the following solution to the problem (P):

(SP1)

The basic terms of the historiographyhistoriography of generative linguistics are ›scientificscientific revolution‹revolutionscientificevolutionscientific and ›paradigm‹paradigm, supplemented by ›climate of opinion‹climate of opinion with respect to Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures, while its central hypothesis is (T1) and its framework is KuhnKuhn, Thomas S. (1970)[1962].