FL and the envelope of variability

I read a nice little paper that I would like to bring to your attention. The article(by Alison Henry) is ostensibly about Q-float in varieties of Irish English and it elaborates a point made in earlier work by Jim McCloskey (2000). Jim’s paper used the distribution of quantifiers floated off of WH elements to provide evidence for successive cyclicity (the Qs could be stranded in what are effectively phase edges (aka “escape hatches”)). You are all likely more familiar with this work than I am so I won’t review it here. Henry’s interesting paper makes three additional interesting points:

1.     The paper observes that the Q stranding provides evidence for vP as a phase edge as it seems possible to strand material in this position in several dialects.

2.     The parallel between the stranding facts in A’ movement configurations with that of Q float in A-movement configurations suggests that these should be treated uniformly andthis implies that Q-float in A-movement configurations piggy backs on movement as Sportiche originally suggested rather than these Qs being based generated like adverbials in vP edge positions for semantic reasons.

3.     It suggests an interesting way of parsing these Q stranding effects to shed light on what wrt the phenomenon reflects universal features of FL/UG and what is more G specific.

Like I said, this is a nice little paper and a quick and illuminating read. Before ending, let me say a word or two about the points above.

First, if correct, it provides as the paper notes, interesting evidence for the claim that vP is a phase edge. There is also counter evidence for this claim coming from Keine and Bhatt’s work on non-local agreement in Hindi (thx to Omer for bringing this to my attention). However the Henry data seems compelling, at least to me, and clearly points to something like a landing site under CP for A’-movement. At the very least this now sets up a nice research question for some ambitious syntax grad student: how to reconcile the Irish English data with the Hindi data. Good luck.

The paper’s second point also seems to me quite solid. If the stranding data under A-movement is a proper subset of that under A’-movement then it is hard to see what could motivate treating them as generated by entirely different mechanisms. In fact, theoretically, this would seem to me to be a disaster, invoking the worst kind of constructionism. Linguists have a habit of theoretically reifying surface data in their generative procedures. This leads to multiplication of G operations that have similar effects, which requires enriching the structure of FL/UG. This is a habit to be resisted, IMO. In fact, as a working hypothesis, I believe that we should standardly assume that FL can only do things in one way. There are never two roads to Rome! Henry’s paper shows how productive this kind of assumption can be empirically.

Third, and this IMO is the paper’s most interesting feature, it proposes a very reasonable view of one rich source of variation. Henry’s paper notes that we can find Qs stranded in anyphase edge (and base position) when we take the unionof all the dialects. No singledialect appears to allow Qs to surface in every position. Thus, it might seem as if each dialect has a different Q float mechanism. And, of course, in one sense this is correct. Each G must have somedifference or there would be no dialectal differences. However, as Henry’s paper argues, we can see this another way. The data points to the conclusion that FL/UG actually permits stranding in anyposition but specific LADs acquire Gs with further restrictions. In other words, FL/UG provides an envelope of possibilities that particular Gs further restrict. How? Via learning from the input. The paper makes the plausible point that PLD could fix the specific landing spots allowing the dialect specific G to use the FL/UG provided options as templates for where Qs could appear. This seems to me like a very reasonable idea and allows us to use the full range of variation as a window into the properties of FL/UG.

Two points: First, I have no idea how robust the Q float data are in the PLD and whether there is enough there to fix the various dialects.[1]However, Henry’s speculation can be tested. We are talking about data that should be easy to spot in a CHILDES data base for Irish English (if there is one).  One nice feature of this data: it will all fall into the domain of 0⁺learning (discussed here) and so be the right rain size to be acquirable via PLD. 

Second, the idea that Henry’s paper illustrates with Q float is one that others (e.g. Idsardi and Lidz and yours truly) have suggested for other syntactic phenomena.[2]We know that I-Merge generates copies in many places and which copy is pronounced should have an impact on surface order given standard linearization procedures. We can put these things together in Henryish fashion and note that what FL/UG provides via Merge is an envelope of possibilities that PLD then winnows out to provide some basic word order templates. On this view, FL/UG provides representations for the class of possible dependencies and PLD provides evidence for selecting among these possibilities wrt linearization. If this is correct, then specificlinearizations in specific Gs are not going to reflect much on the structure of FL/UG though the full range of typological options attested might well do so. At any rate, Henry provides a nice case study of the logic that Idsardi and Lidz were proposing more generally.

Enough said. Like I said, Henry’s paper is interesting and very well written and reasonably compact. Wish I had written it. 

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[1]In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that the range of variation might be more idiolectal than dialectal, but I really do not know enough to ground this suspicion.

[2]Eric Raimy and Lidz have suggested something like this for phonological phenomena as well. They argue that phonological structures are graphs, not strings, and so linearization is as much an issue in phonology as it is in syntax. If you haven’t read this stuff, you should take a look. It’s quite cool.

Sexual harassment in academia

Here is a link to a piece that discusses harassment in academia. The study discussed makes for pretty horrific reading. Here is a sample:

The Penn State survey indicates that 43.4% of undergraduates, 58.9% of graduate students, and 72.8% of medical students have experienced gender harassment, while 5.1% of undergraduates, 6.0% of graduate students, and 5.7% of medical students report having experienced unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion. These are staggering results, both in terms of the absolute number of students who were affected and the negative effects that these  experiences had on their ability to fulfill their educational potential. The University of Texas study shows a similar pattern, but also permits us to see meaningful differences across fields of study. Engineering and medicine provide significantly more harmful environments for female students than non-STEM and science disciplines.

We have a group here at UMD looking at harassment within linguistics. I look forward to having them report on their findings here at FoL. I will certainly link to anything they do when it is done.

Omer on linguistic atoms

This is my first curation since agreeing to curate. I am soooo excited! The link is to a piece that Omer has on syntactic atoms. I won't be giving much away if I say that he thinks that it is not entirely clear what these are, though whatever it is, it is not what most people take them to be.  I won't say what his argument is, because you should read it.  But I will say that the main point he makes has been, in part, made by others.

Chomsky has long argued that whatever "words" are they do not have the referential properties that semanticists take them to have. And in this they contrast with animal calls, which, Chomsky points out, fit the referential/denotational paradigm quite tightly. See (here) for some discussion and references.

Similarly, more recently, Paul Pietroski has argued that syntactic atoms do not denote concepts or extensions but something more abstract; something akin to instructions for fetching concepts. As he points out the key desideratum for lexical meanings is that they compose (here Paul follows Fodor who made a very good career pointing out that most of the things that philosophers proposed as vehicles for meaning failed to compose even a little bit). If this is so, then the idea that linguistic atoms are concepts cannot be correct and the question of how our syntactic atoms emerged to mediate our way to concepts becomes an interesting question. Combine this with Chomsky's observations and one has a real research question to hand.

Omer presents another take on this general view; the idea that our standard conceptions of syntactic atoms are scientifically problematic. In fact, given that we have learned something about syntax and the basic operations it might involve over the last 60 years, just what to make of the atoms (of which we have, IMO, learned little) might be even more urgent.

Here is the link to Omer's piece.

Birds, all birds, and nothing but birds

I know, just when you thought it was ok to go back into the water. He’s back!! But rest assured this is a short one and I could not resist. It appears (see here) that biology has forsaken everything that our cognoscenti have taught us about evolution. We all know that it cannot be discontinuous. We all knowthat the continuity thesis is virtually conceptually necessary. We all knowthis because for years we have been told that the idea that linguistic facility in humans is based on something biologically distinctive that only humans have is as close to biologically incoherent as can be imagined. Anybody suggesting that that what we find in human languagemightbe biologically distinctive and unique is a biological illiterate. Impossible. Period. Creationism!

Well guess again. It seems that the bird voicebox, the syrinx, is biologically sui generis in the animal kingdom and “scientists have concluded that this voice box evolved only once, and that it represents a rare example of a true evolutionary novelty” (1). 

But surely they don’t mean ‘novelty’ when they say ‘novelty.’ Yup, that is exactly what they mean:

“It’s something that comes out of nothing,” says Denis Dubuole, a geneticist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland who was not involved with the work. “There is nothing that looks like a syrinx in any related animal groups in vertebrates. This is very bizarre.”

Now, as the little report indicates, true novelties are “hard to come by.” But, as the syrinx indicates, they are not conceptually impossible. It is biologically coherent to propose that these exist and that they can emerge. And that their distinctive properties are exactly what people like Chomsky have been suggesting is true of the recursive parts of FL (4).

They are innovations—new traits or new structures—that arise without any clear connections to existing traits or structures. 

Imagine that, no clear connections to other traits on other species or ancestors. Hmm. Are these guys really biologists? Probably not, or at least, not for long for very soon their credentials are sure to be revoked by the orthodox guardians of EvoLang. Save me! Save me! The discontinuitists are coming!

The report makes one more interesting observation: these kinds of qualitatively new innovations serve as interesting gateways for yet more innovation. Here, the development of the syrinx could have enabled songs to become more complex and biologists speculate that this might in turn have led to further speciation. In the language case, it is conceivable that the capacity for recursion in languageled to a capacity for recursion more generally in other cognitive domains. Think of arithmetic as a new song one can sing when hierarchical recursion has snuck in.  

Is all of this correct? Who knows? Today the claim is that the syrinx is a biological novelty. Tomorrow we might find out that it is less novel than currently advertised (recall for Minimalists, FL is unique but not thatunique. Just a teensy weensy bit unique). What is important is not whether it is unique, but the fact that biology and evolution and genetics have nothing against unique sui generic one of a kind features. They are rare, but not unheard of and not beyond the intellectual pale. That means that entertaining the possibility that something, say hierarchical recursion, is a unique cognitive capacity is not living out on the intellectual edge in evolutionary La-La land. It is a hypothesis and one that cannot be dismissed by assuming that this is not the way biology works or could work. It can so work and seems even to have done so on occasion. That means critics of the claim that language is a species specific capacity have to engage with the actual claims. Hand waving is simply dishonest (and you know who you are). 

Moreover, we know how to show that uniqueness claims are incorrect: just (ha!) show how to derive the properties of the assumed unique organ/capacity from more generic traits and show how the trait/organ under consideration could have continuously evolved from these using very itty bitty steps. Apparently, this was done for fingers and toes from fish fins. If you think that hierarchical recursion is “just more of the same” then find me the fins and show me the steps. If not, well, let’s just say, that the continuists have some work ahead of them (Lucy, you have some explaining to do) if they want to be taken seriously and that there is nothing biologically untoward or incoherent or wrong in assuming that sometimes, rarely but sometimes, novelties arise “without any clear connections to existing traits and structures.” And what better place to look for a discontinuity than in in language?

Let me end by adding two useful principles for future thinking on topics related to language and the mind:

1.     Chomsky is never (stupidly) wrong

2.     If you think that Chomsky is (stupidly) wrong go back to 1

Pulling back

Today marks FoL's sixth anniversary. I started FoL because I just could not stand reading the junk being written about Generative Grammar (GG) in the popular press. The specific occasion was some horrid coverage of Everett's work (By Bartlett in the Chronicle) on Piraha and its supposed significance for theories of FL/UG. The discussion was based on the most trivial misunderstanding of the GG enterprise, and I thought that I could help sort matters out and have some fun in the process. I did have fun. I have sorted things out. I have not stopped the garbage.

FoL has continued to try to deal with the junk by both pointing it out and then explaining how it was badly mistaken. This has, sadly, kept me quite busy. There is lots of misunderstanding out there and it never seems to lessen, no matter how many stakes get driven into the hearts of the extremely poor arguments.

In addition to regularly cleaning out the Augean stables, I have also written on other issues that amuse me: Rationalism vs Empiricism, Fodor and representationalism, big data, deep learning, mentalism, PoS argumentation, languistics vs linguistics, universals, Evo Lang, minimalism and its many many virtues, minimalism and its obscurities, minimalism and how to do it right, minimalism and how/why people misinterpret it, computationalism and its implications for cog-neuro, the greatness of Randy's work, interesting findings in neuro that support GG, how to bring near and ling closer together (Yay to Embick and Poeppel), and more. It's been a busy 6 years.

In fact, here is how busy. I calculate that I've written about 1 long post per week for the last 6 years. A long post is 4 pages or more. I have also put up shorter ones so that overall I have posted upwards of 600 pieces. And I have enjoyed every minute of this.

However, doing this (finding the articles, reading them, writing the posts, responding to comments, cleaning the site) has taken up a lot of my time, and as I want to write one last book before I call it quits (I am getting very old!), I have decided that I have to cut back. My current plan is to write maybe one post a month, if that. This will allow me to write my magnum opus (this is a joke!) which will be an even more full throated defense of the unbelievable success of the Minimalist Program. It really has been marvelous and I intend to show exactly how marvelous in about 150 (not more or nobody will take a look) fun filled pages. If all goes well, I might even post versions in FoL for comment.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that I will be posting much less often and to thank you for reading, commenting and arguing with me for the last 6 years. I have learned a lot and enjoyed every minute. But time for a break.

One last point: if anyone wishes to post to FoL I am open to looking at things to put up. We still have others that will be contributing content and I am happy to curate more if it comes my way. So feel free to jump in. And again, thx.

Linguistic experiments

How often do we test our theories and basic concepts in linguistics? I don’t know for sure, but my hunch is that it is not that often. Let me explain.

One of the big ideas in the empirical sciences is the notion of the crucial experiment (or “experimentum crucis” (EC) for those of you who prefer “ceteris paribus” to “all things being equal” (psst, I am one of those so it is ‘EC’ from now on) (see here). What is an EC?  Wikepedia says the following:

In the sciences, an experimentum crucis (English: crucial experiment or critical experiment) is an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular hypothesis or theory is superior to all other hypotheses or theories whose acceptance is currently widespread in the scientific community. In particular, such an experiment must typically be able to produce a result that rules out all other hypotheses or theories if true, thereby demonstrating that under the conditions of the experiment (i.e., under the same external circumstancesand for the same "input variables" within the experiment), those hypotheses and theories are proven false but the experimenter's hypothesis is not ruled out.

The most famous experiments in the sciences (e.g. Michelson-Morley on Special Relativity, Eddington’s on General Relativity, Aspect on Bell’s inequality) are ECs, including those that were likely never conducted (e.g. Galileo’s dropping things from the tower). What makes them critical is that they are able to isolate a central feature of a theory or a basic concept for test in a local environment where it is possible to control for the possible factors. We all know (or we all shouldknow) that it is very hard to test an interesting theoretical claim directly.[1]As the quote above notes, the test critically relies on carefully specifying the “conditions of the experiment” so as to be able to isolate the principle of interest enough for an up or down experimental test.

What happens in such an experiment? Well, we set up ancillary assumptions that are well grounded enough to allow the experiment to focus on the relevant feature up for test. In particular, if the ancillary assumptions are sufficiently well grounded in the experimental situation then the proposition up for test will be the link in the deductive structure of the set up that is most exposed by the test. 

Ancillary assumptions are themselves empirical and hence contestable. That is why ECs are so tough to dream up: to be effective these ancillary assumptions must in the context of the experimental set upbe stronger than the theoretical item they are being used to test. If they are weaker than the proposition to be tested then the EC cannot decisively test that proposition. Why? Well, the ancillary assumption(s) will be weaker links in the chain of experimental reasoning and an experimental result can always be correctlycausally attributed to the weaker ancillary assumptions. This will spare exposure of the theoretically principle or concept of interest directly to the test. However, and this is the important thing, it is possible in a given contextto marshal enough useful ancillary assumptions that are better grounded in that contextthan the proposition to be tested. And when this is possible the conditions for an EC are born.

As I noted, I am not sure that we linguists do much ECing. Yes, we argue for and against hypotheses and marshal data to those ends, but it is rare that we set things up to manufacture a stable EC. Here is what I mean.

A large part of linguistic work aims less to test a hypothesis than to apply it (and thereby to possibly(not this is a possibility, not a necessity) refine it). For example, say I decide to work on a certain construction C in a certain language L. Say C has some focus properties, namely when the expression appears in a designated position distinct from its “base” position it bears a focus interpretation. I then analyze the mechanisms underlying this positioning. I usemovement theory to triangulate on the kind of operation might be involved. I test this assumption by seeing if it meets the strictures of Subjacency Theory (allows unbounded dependencies yet obeys islands) and if it does, I conclude it is movement. I then proceed to describe some of the finer points of the construction given that it is an A’-movement operation. This might force a refinement of the notion of movement, or island or, phase to capture all the data, but the empirical procedure presupposes that the theory we entered the investigation with is on the right track though possibly in need of refinement within the grammar of L. The empirical investigation’s primary interest is in describing C in L and in service of this it will refine/revise/repurpose (some) principles of FL/UG. 

This sort of work, no matter how creative and interesting is unlikely to lead to a EC of the principles of FL/UG precisely because of its exploratory nature. The principles are more robust than the ancillary assumptions we will make to fit the facts. And if this is so, we cannot use the description to evaluate the basic principles. Quite the contrary. So, this kind of work, which I believe describes a fair chunk of what gets done, will not generally serve EC ends.

There is a second impediment to ECs in linguistics. More often than not the principles are too gauzy to be pinned down for direct test. Take for example the notion of “identity” or “recoverability.” Both are key concepts in the study of ellipsis, but, so far as I can tell, we are not quite sure how to specify them. Or maybe a more accurate claim would be is that we have many many specifications. Is it exact syntactic identity? Or identity as non-distinctness? Or propositional (semantic) identity? Identity of what object at what level?  We all know that something likeidentity is critical, but it has proven to be very hard to specify exactly what notion is relevant. And of course, because of this, it is hard to generate ECs to test these notions. Let me repeat: the hallmark of a good EC is its deductive tightness. In the experimental situation the experimental premises are tight enough and grounded enough to focus attention on the principle/concept of interest. Good ECs are very tight deductive packages. So constructing effective ones is hard and this is why, I believe, there are not many ECs in linguistics.

But this is not always so, IMO. Here are some example ECs that have convinced me.

First: It is pretty clear that we cannot treat case as a byproduct of agreement. What’s the EC?[2]Well one that I like involves the Anaphor Agreement Effect (AAE). Woolford (refining Rizzi) observed that reflexives cannot sit in positions where they would have to value agreement features on a head. The absence of nominative reflexives in languages like English illustrates this. The problem with them is not that they are nominatively case marked, but that they must value the un-valued phi features of T⁰and they cannot do this. So, AAE becomes an excellent phi-feature detector and it can be put to use in an EC: if case is a byproduct of phi-feature valuation then we should never find reflexives in (structurally) case marked positions. This is a direct consequence of the AAE. But we do regularly find reflexives in non-nominative positions, hence it must be possible to assign case without first valuing phi-features. Conclusion: case assignment need not piggy back on phi-feature valuation. 

Note the role that the AAE plays in this argument. It is a relatively simple and robust principle. Moreover, it is one that we would like to preserve as it explains a real puzzling fact about nominative reflexives: they don’t robustly exist! And where we do find them, they don’t come from T⁰s with apparent phi-features and where we find other case assigning heads that do have unvalued phi-features we don’t find reflexives. So, all in all, the AAE looks like a fairly decent generalization and is one that we would like to keep. This makes it an excellent part of a deductive package aimed at testing the idea that case is parasitic on agreement as we can lever its retention into an probe of some idea we want to explore. If AAE is correct (main assumption), then if case is parasitic on agreement we shouldn’t see reflexives in case positions that require valuing phi features on a nearby head. If case is not parasitic on phi valuation then we will. The experimental verdict is that we do find reflexives in the relevant domains and the hypothesis that case and phi-feature valuation are two sides of the same coin sinks. A nice tight deductive package. An EC with a very useful result.

Second: Here’s a more controversial EC, but I still think is pretty dispositive. Inverse control provides a critical test for PRO based theories of control. Here’s the deductive package: PRO is an anaphoric dependent of its controller. Anaphoric dependents can never c-command their antecedents as this would violate principle C. Principle C is a very robust characteristic of binding configurations. So, a direct consequence of PRO based accounts of control is the absence of inverse control configurations, configurations in which “PRO” c-commands its antecedent. 

This consequence has been repeatedly tested since Polinksy and Potsdam first mooted the possibility in Tsez and it appears that inverse control does indeed exist. But regardless of whether you are moved by the data, the logic is completely ECish and unless there is something wrong with the design (which I strongly doubt) it settles the issue of whether Control is a DP-PRO dependency. It cannot be. Inverse control settles the matter. This has the nice consequence that PRO does not exist. Most linguists resist this conclusion but, IMO, that is because they have not fully taken on board the logic of ECs.

Here’s a third and last example: are island effects complexity effects or structural effects? In other words, are island effects the reflections of some generic problem that islands present cognition with or something specific to the structural properties of islands? The former would agree that island effects exist but that they are due to, for example, short term memory overload that the parsing of islands induces. 

The two positions are both coherent and, truth be told, for theoretical reasons, I would rather that the complexity story were the right one. It would just make my life so much easier to be able to say that island effects were not part of my theoretical minimalist remit. I could then ignore them because they are not really reflections of the structure of FL/UG and so I would not have to try and explain them! Boy would that be wonderful! But much as I would love this conclusion, I cannot in good scientific conscience adopt it for Sprouse and colleagues have done ECs showing that it is very very likely wrongwrong. I refer you to the Experimental Syntax volume Sprouse and I edited for discussion (see here) and details. 

The gist of the argument is that were islands reflexes of things like memory limitations then we should be able to move island acceptability judgments around by manipulating the short term memory variable. And we can do this. Humans come in strong vs weak short term memory capacities. We even have measures of these. Were island effects reflections of such memory capacity, then island effects would differentially affect these two groups. They don’t so it’s not. Again the EC comes in a tight little deductive box and the experiment (IMO) decisively settles the matter. Island effects, despite my fondest wishes really do reflect something about the structurallinguisticproperties of islands. Damn!

So, we have ECs in linguistics and I would like to see many more. Let me end by saying why.  I have three reasons.

First, it would generate empirical work directly aimed at theoretically interesting issues. The current empirical investigative instrument is the analysis, usually of some construction or paradigm. It starts with an empirical paradigm or construction in some L and it aims at a description and explanation for that paradigm’s properties. This is a fine way to proceed and it has served us well. This way of proceeding is particularly apposite when we are theory poor for it relies on the integrity of the paradigm to get itself going and reaches for the theory in service of a better description and possible explanation. And, as I said, there is nothing wrong with this. However, though it confronts theory, it does so obliquely rather than directly. Or so it looks to me.

To see this, contrast this with the kind of empirical work we see more often in the rest of the sciences. Here empirical work is experimental. Experiments are designed to test the core features of the theory. This requires, first, identifying and refining the key features of the leading ideas, massaging them, explicating them and investigating their empirical consequences. Once done, experiments aim to find ways of making these consequences empirically visible. Experiments, in other words, require a lot of logical scaffolding. They are not exploratory but directed towards specific questions, questions generated by the theories they are intended to test. Maybe a slogan would help here: linguistics has lots of exploratory work, some theoretical work but only a smidgen of experimental work. We could do with some more.

Second, experiments would tighten up the level of argument. I mentioned that ECs come as tight deductive packages. The assumptions, both what is being tested and the ancillary hypotheses must be specified for an EC to succeed. This is less the case for exploratory work. Here we need to string together principles and facts in a serviceable way to cover the empirical domain. This is different from building an airtight box to contain it and prod it and test it. So, I think that a little more experimental thinking would serve to tighten things up.

Third, the main value of ECs is that it eliminates theoretical possibilities and so allows us to more narrowly focus theory construction. For example, if case is not parasitic on agreement then this suggests different theories of case than ones where they must swing together. Similarly, if PRO does not exist, then theories that rely on PRO are off on the wrong track, no matter how descriptively useful they might be. The role of experiments, in the best of all possible worlds, is to discard attractive but incorrect theory. This is what empirical work is for, to dispose. Now, we do not (and never will) live in the best of all possible scientific worlds. But this does not mean that getting a good bead on the empirical standing of our basic concepts experimentally is not useful. 

Let me finish by adding one more thing. Our friends in psycho ling do experiments all the time. Their culture is organized around this procedure. That’s why I have found going to their lab meetings so interesting. I think that theories in Ling are far better grounded and articulated than theories in psycho-ling (that is my personal opinion) but their approach often seems more direct and reasonable. If you have not been in the habit of sitting in on their lab meetings, I would recommend doing so. There is a lot to recommend the logic of experimentation that is part of their regular empirical practice.

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[1]Part of the problem with languists’ talking about Chomsky’s linguistic conception of universals is that they do not appreciate that simply looking at surface forms is unlikely to bear much on the claim being made. Grammars are not directly observable. Languists take this to imply that Chomskyan universals are not testable. But this is not so. They are not triviallytestable, which is a whole different matter. Nothing interesting is trivially testable. It requires all sorts of ancillary hypotheses to set the stage for isolating the relevant principle of interest. And this takes lots of work. 

[2]This is based on discussions with Omer. Thx.

Dowty & Jacobson revisited: https://omer.lingsite.org/blogpost-dowty-jacobson-revisited/