The future of linguistics; two views

Addendum: I would like to apologize for systematically mis-spelling Peter Hagoort's name. Before I revised the post below, I called him 'Hargoort.' This was not due to malice (someone called 'Norbert' is not really into the name mocking business) but because I cannot spell. Sorry.

Peter Hagoort and I are both worrying about the future of linguistics (see here). [1] We both lament the fact that linguistics once played “a central role in cognitive science” but that “studies in language relevant topics are no longer strongly influences by the developments in linguistics.” This is unfortunate, according to Hagoort, because “linguists could help cognitive (neuro)scientists to be more advanced in their thinking about the representational structures in the human mind.” He is right, of course, but why he thinks this is very unclear given what he actually proposes, as I show below.

I too lament these sad happenings. Moreover, I am saddened because I have seen that consistent collaboration between GGers and psychologists, computationalists and neuroscientists is not only possible but also very fruitful. Nor is it that hard, really. I know this because I live in a department that does this every day and all the time. Of course doing good work is always difficult, but doing good work that combines a decent knowledge of what linguists have discovered with techniques and insights from other near-by disciplines (psych, CS, neuroscience) is quite doable. It is even fun.

Unfortunately, Hargoort’s piece makes clear, he has no idea that this is the case. He appears to believe that linguists have very little to offer him. I suspect that this might indeed be true for the kinds of questions he seems interested in. But I would conclude from this that he is missing out some really interesting questions. Or, to be more charitable: what is sad about cognitive neuroscience of the Hagoort variety is that it has stopped investigating the kinds of questions that knowing something about linguistics would help answer. Why is this?  Hagoort’s diagnosis of linguistics’ fall from cogneuro grace offers an explanation. He identifies three main problems with linguistics of the generative variety. I will review them and comment seriatim.

First, Hagoort believes that the sorts of representations that GGers truck in are just not right for the brain. In other words, he believes that cogneuro has shown that brains cannot support the kinds of mental representations that linguists have argued for. As Hagoort puts it: “language-like structures do not embody the basic machinery of cognition” (2). How does he know? His authority is Paul Churchland who believes that “human neuronal machinery differs from that of other animals in various small degrees but not in fundamental kind. ” The conclusion is that the language like representations that GGers typically use to explain linguistic data are not brain-structure compatible.

Unfotunately, Hagoort does little more than baldly state this conclusion in this short piece.[2] However, the argument he points to is really quite bad. Let’s assume that Hargoort is right and that non-linguistic cognition (he illustrates with the imagery debate between Kosslyn and Pylyshyn) does not use language like structures in executing its functions (I personally find this unlikely, but let’s assume it for the sake of argument). Does Hagoort really believe that linguistic behavior does not exploit “language-like structures” (what Hargoort calls “linguaform”)? Does Hagoort really believe that not even sentences have sentential structure? If he does believe this, then I await the dropping of the second shoe. Which one? The one containing the linguaformless reanalyses of the myriad linguistic phenomena that have been described using linguaforms. To my knowledge this has never been seriously attempted. Paul Churchland has never suggested how this might be done, nor has Hagoort so far as I know. The reason is that sentences have structure, as 60 years of linguistic research has established, and so far as we can tell, the structure that phrases and sentences have (and linguistic sounds and words and meanings) are unlike the structures that scenes and non-linguistic sounds and smells have. And as linguistics has shown over the last 60 years of research, these structural features are important in describing and explaining a large array of linguistic phenomena. So, if linguists have been wrong about the assumption that “linguiforms” are implicated in the description and explanation of these patterns, then there is a big empirical problem waiting to be tackled: to reanalyze (viz. re-describe and re-explain) these very well studied and attested linguistic data in non-“linguaform” terms. Hagoort does not mention this project in his short speech. However, if he is serious in his claims, this is what he must show us how to do. I very much doubt that he will be able to do it. In fact, I know he won’t.

Let me go further still. As I never tire of mentioning, GG has discovered a lot about natural language structure, both its universal properties and its range of variation. GGers don’t understand everything, but there is wide consensus in the profession that sentences have proposition-like structure and that the rules of grammar exploit this structure. This is not controversial. And if it is not, then however much our brains resemble those of other animals, the fact that humans do manipulate “linguaforms” implies that humans have some mental/neural capacities for doing so, even if other animals do not.[3] Moreover, if this is right, then Hagoort’s finger is pointing in the wrong direction. The problem is not with linguistics, but with the cognuero of language. It has decided to stop looking at the facts, something that we can all agree is not a good sign of scientific health within the cogneuro of language.

So Hagoort is ready to ignore what GG has discovered without feeling any obligation to account for this “body of doctrine.” How come? He actually provides two reasons for this neglect (though he doesn’t put it this way).

The first reason he provides is that linguists are a contentious lot who not only (i) don’t agree with one another (there is “no agreed upon taxonomy of the central linguistic phenomena”) but (ii) have also “turned their backs to the developments in cognitive (neuro) science and alienated themselves from what is going on I adjacent fields of research” (2).  I somewhat sympathize with these two points. A bit, not a lot.  Let me say why.

Let’s address (i): Contrary to the accepted wisdom, linguistics has been a fairly conservative discipline with later work largely preserving the insights of earlier research and then building on these. This may be hard to see if you are outsider. Linguists, like all scientists, are proud and fractious and argumentative. There exists a bad habit of pronouncing revolutions every decade or so. However, despite some changes in theory, GG revolutions have preserved most of the structures of the ancien regimes. This is typical for a domain of inquiry that has gained some scientific traction, and it is what has taken place in GG as well. However, independently of this, there is something more relevant to Hagoort’s concerns. For the purposes of most of what goes on in cogneuro, it really doesn’t matter what vintage theory one adopts.

Let me be blunter. I love Minimalist investigations, but for most of what is studied in language acquisition, language processing and production, and neurolinguistics it really doesn’t matter whether you adopt the latest technology or the newest fangled concepts. You can do good work in all of these areas using GB models, LFG models, HPSG and GPSG models, Aspects models, and RG models. For many (most?) of the types of questions being posed in these domains all these models describe things in effectively the same way, make essentially the same distinctions and adopt more or less the same technology.

I’m not making this up. I really do know this to be true for I have seen this at work in my own department. There may be questions for which the differences between these various approaches matter (though I am pretty skeptical about this as I consider many of these as notational variants rather than differing theories), but for most everything I have personally witnessed, this has not been the case. This indicates that contrary to what Hargoort reports, there is a huge overlapping consensus in GG about the basic structure of natural language. That he has failed to note this, IMO, suggests that he has not really taken a serious look at the matter (or asked anyone).  Of course, life would be nicer were there less pushing and pulling within linguistics (well maybe, I like the contention myself), but that’s what intro texts are for and by now there are endless numbers of these in linguistics that Hargoort could easily consult. What he will find is that they contain more or less the same things. And they are more than sufficient for many of the things he might want to investigate, or that’s my guess.

Hagoort’ claim (ii) is that linguists ignore what is going on in cogneuro. Is this correct? Some do, some don’t. As I noted, my own department is very intellectually promiscuous, with syntacticians, phonologists and semanticists mixing freely and gaily with psycho, computational and neuro types on all sorts of projects. However, let’s again assume that Hagoort is right. The real question is intellectually speaking, who needs who more? I would contend that though checking in with your intellectual neighbors is always a good thing to do, it is currently possible (note the italicized adjective please) to do fine work in syntax while ignoring what is happening in the cogneuro of language. The opposite, I would contend, is not the case.  Why? Because to study the cogneuro of X you need to know something about X. Nobody doing the cogneuro of vision would think that ignoring what we know about visual perception is a good idea. So why does Hagoort think that not knowing anything about linguistic structure is ok for the study of the cogneuro of language? All agree that the cogneuro of language aims to study those parts of the brain that allow for the use and acquisition of language. Wouldn’t knowing something about the thing being used/acquired be useful? I would think so. Does Hagoort?

This is not apparent from his remarks, and that is a problem. Imagine you were working on the cogneuro of vision, and say that the people who work on visual perception were rude and obstreperous, would it be scientifically rational to conclude that its ok to ignore their work when working on the cogneuro of vision? I would guess not. Their results are important for your work. So even if it might be hard to get what you need from a bunch of uncivilized heathens, it doesn’t make getting what you need any less critical.  So even if Hagoort is right about the lack of interest among linguists for cogneuro, that’s not a very good reason to not claw your way to their results (is it Peter?).

This said, let me admonish my fellow linguists: If a cogneuro person comes and asks you for some linguistic instruction BE NICE!! In fact be VERY, VERY NICE!!! (psst: it appears that they bruise easily).

So, IMO, the first two reasons that Hagoort provides are very weak. Let’s turn to his third for, if accurate, it could explain why Hargoort thinks that work in linguistics can a safely ignored. The third problem he identifies concerns the methodological standards for evidence evaluation in linguistics. He believes that current linguistic methods for data collection and evaluation are seriously sub-par. More specifically, our common practice is filled with “weak quantitative standards” and consists of nothing more than “running sentences in your head and consulting a colleague.” I assume that Hagoort further believes that such sloppiness invalidates the empirical bases of much GG research.[4]

Sadly, this is just wrong. There has been a lot of back and forth on these issues over the last five years and it is pretty clear that Gibson and Federenko’s worries are (at best) misplaced. In fact, Jon Sprouse and Diogo Almeida have eviscerated these claims (see here, here, here and here). They have shown that the data that GGers use in everyday practice is very robust and that there is nothing lacking in the informal methods deployed. How do we know this? It can be gleaned from the fact that using more conventional statistical methods beloved of all psychologists and neurosceintists yield effectively the same results. Thus, the linguistic data that GG linguists have collected in their informal way (consulting their intuitions and asking a few friends) are extremely robust, indeed more robust than those typically found in psych and cogneuro (something that Sprouse and Almeida also demonstrate). Hagoort does not appear to know about this literature.[5] Too bad.[6]

In light of his (as we have seen, quite faulty) diagnosis, Hagoort offers some remedies. They range from the irrelevant, to the anodyne to the misinformed to the misguided. The irrelevant is to do “proper experimental research,” (i.e. do what Sprouse and Almeida show linguists already do). The anodyne is to talk more to neuroscientists. This is fine advice, the kind of thing that deans say when they want to look like they are saying something stimulating but really have nothing to say. The misinformed is to work more on language phenomena and less on “top heavy theory.” The misguided is to “embed linguistic theory in “a broader framework of human communication.”  Let me address each in turn and then stop.

The irrelevant should speak for itself. If Sprouse and Alemeida are right (which I assure you they are; read the papers) then there is nothing wrong with the data that GGers use. That said, there is nothing inherently wrong (though it is more time consuming and expensive though and no more accurate) with using more obsessive methods when greater care is called for. My colleagues in acquisition, processing and production use these all the time. Sprouse has also used them when the data as conventionally gathered has failed to be clear cut. As linguistics develops and the questions it asks become more and more refined it would surprise me were we forced to the anal retentive more careful methods that Hagoort prizes. There is nothing wrong with using these methods where useful, but there is nothing good about using them when they are not (and to repeat they are far less efficient). It all depends, like most things.

The anodyone should also be self-evident. Indeed, in some areas (e.g. phonology and morphology) cogneuro techniques promise to enrich linguistic methods of investigation. But even in those areas where this is less currently obvious (e.g. syntax, semantics) I think that having linguists talk to neuroscientists will help focus the latter’s attention onto more interesting issues and may help sharpen GGers explanatory skills. So, in addition to it just being good to be catholic in one’s interests, it might even be mutually beneficial.

The third suggestion above is actually quite funny. Clearly Hagoort doesn't talk to many linguists or read what they write or go to their talks. Most current work is language based and very descriptive. I’ve discussed this before, lamenting the fact that theoretical work is so rarely prized or pursued (see here). Hagoort has already gotten his wish. All he has to do is talk to some linguists to realize that this desire is easily met.

The last point is the one to worry about, and it is the one that perhaps shows why Hagoort is really unhappy with current linguistics. He understands language basically from a communication perspective. He wants linguists to investigate language use, rather than language capacity. Here we should resist his advice. Or we should resist the implication that the communicative use of language is the important problem while liming the contours of human linguistic capacity is at best secondary. From where I sit, Hagoort has it exactly backwards. Language use presupposes knowledge of language. Thus, the former is a far more complicated topic than the latter. And all things being equal, studying simple things is a better route to scientific success than studying more complicated ones. At any rate, the best thing linguists who are interested in how language is used to communicate can do is keep describing how Gs are built and what they can do.

That’s what I think. I believe that Hagoort believes the exact opposite. He is of the opinion that communication is primary while grammatical competence is secondary, and here, I believe that he is wrong. He gives no arguments or reasons for this view and until he does, this very bad advice should be ignored. Work on communication if you want to, but understanding how it works will require competence theories of the GG variety. It won’t replace them.

Ok, this has been far too long a post. Hagoort is right. Linguistics has gone into the shadows. It is no longer the Queen of the Cognitive Neuro-Sciences. But this demotion is less for intellectual than socio-political reasons, as I’ve argued extensively on FoL.  I am told that among cogneuro types, Hagoort is relatively friendly to linguistics.  He thinks it worth his time to advise us. Others just ignore us. If Hagoort is indeed our friend, then it will be a long time before linguistics makes it back to the center of the cogneuro stage. This does not mean that good work combining neuro and GG cannot be pursued. But it does mean that for the nonce this will not be received enthusiastically by the cogneuro community. That is too bad; Sociologically (and economically) for linguistics, intellectually for the cogneuro of language.

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[1] Actually entered my e-mail. Thx Tal and William.

[2] This is not to fault him, for this was an address, I believe and like all good addresses, brevity is the soul of wit.

[3] Some readers may have captured a whiff of the methodological dualism discussed here and here.

[4] He refers to Gibson and Federenko’s 2010 TICS paper and this is what it argues.

[5] Those interested in a good review of the issues can look at Colin Phillips’ slides here.

[6] There is a certain kind of cargo-cult quality to the obsession with the careful statistical vetting of data. I suspect that Hargoort insists on this because it really looks scientific. You know the lab coats, the button boxes, the RSVP presentation really looks professional. Maybe we should add ‘sciency’ to Colbert’s ‘truthy’ to describe what is at issue sociologically.