Carl Pollard (pollard@ling.ohio-state.edu)
Wed, 10 Dec 97 16:26:33 EST
>From shalom@semantics.soas.ac.uk Wed Dec 10 16:22:40 1997 Received: from general.ulcc.ac.uk by julius.ling.ohio-state.edu (4.1/2.941294) id <AA27222@julius.ling.ohio-state.edu>; Wed, 10 Dec 97 16:22:38 EST Received: from soas.ac.uk (actually host semantics.soas.ac.uk) by general.ulcc.ac.uk with SMTP (PP); Wed, 10 Dec 1997 21:22:02 +0000 Received: by soas.ac.uk (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA26008; Wed, 10 Dec 1997 21:22:13 GMT From: shalom@semantics.soas.ac.uk (Shalom Lappin) Message-Id: <9712102122.AA26008@soas.ac.uk> Subject: More on the Joint Conference To: hpsg-l@lists.stanford.edu Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 21:22:13 +0000 (GMT) Cc: pollard@ling.ohio-state.edu X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Content-Type: text Status: R Hi Carl, I have jsut returned to London, and I am writing from home. Could I trouble you once again to forward the note below to the hpsg list. I can only login to my SUN from home. Thanks. Regards. Shalom Fellow HPSG Researchers, I must be missing the point of much (most?) of the discussion concerning the joint FG-HPSG Conference planned for ESSLLI this summer. I have always thought that the reason for adopting a particular theoretical framework is that it offered the best available paradigm for developing empirically well motivated and formally precise explanations of a wide range of linguistic phenomena. This is certainly why I moved over to HPSG in my recent syntactic and computational work. I came to this conclusion by comparing the sorts of analyses of particular problems available within HPSG with those on offer in other frameworks. It seems to me that one of the most unattractive aspects of much of the work being done within the minimalist program is its preoccupation with purely theory internal issues that have no obvious empirical content and little, if any, formal substance. Loyalty to a theory for the sake of the theory rather than its scientific value has no place in a serious linguistic research program. If one looks at recent work in formal semantics, one sees that framework boundaries are highly porous. People working in different paradigms are in constant communication with each other, and these paradigms develop by pursuing research on a common set of problems which are studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Constant comparison of the relative advantages and limitations of each perspective is an important source of insight and progress. So, for example, recent advances in our understanding of dynamic aspects of anaphora and quantification is in no small part the result of the dialogue beween DRT, dynamic Montague Grammar, and modified E-type pronoun theories. This sort of dialogue among formal theories of grammar which share common assumptions concerning standards of formalization and computational viability can only benefit the adherents of these theories by deepening their understanding of the explanatory power and limitations of the frameworks within which they work. The fact that we all tend to be insular and not always receptive to analyses formulated in systems we have chosen not to work in should be overcome rather than celebrated. As other participants in the discussion have pointed out, we are often misunderstood by our own theoretical compatriots as severely as we are by researchers from other paradigms. I would hope that a joint GF-HPSG conference would be an important, if tentative step in the direction of opening up lines of communication among formal grammarians of different theoretical outlooks and promoting the common cause of serious work in formal and computational linguistics. I do agree that in the future, decisions like this should be taken through wider consultation within the HPSG community. However, the principle of open theoretical boundaries which the joint conference is intended to serve is, I think, thoroughly commendable. Regards. Shalom
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