挑战生成语言学核心假设，呼吁理论更新与实证标准化。
Is it the end of (generative) linguistics as we know it?
- 从计算、理论、实验三视角审视生成语法的根基问题。
- 指出贫乏刺激假说与简约主义简单性概念面临实证挑战。
- 适合关注语言学理论演进与跨方法研究的学者阅读。
针对斯蒂芬·皮安塔多西（Piantadosi, 2023）在LingBuzz平台发布的论文引发的激烈争论，本文从计算、理论和实验三个理想化视角出发，聚焦两大支持其批判性的核心问题：(a) 挑战贫乏刺激（PoS）假说的证据；(b) 主流简约主义对“简单性”的理解。文章最终主张，为重获语言研究的核心地位，生成语言学——作为语言的典型理论视角——亟需重大更新，包括：(i) 对基础直觉进行更精确、一致且完整的形式化；(ii) 建立并使用标准化的关键实证数据集以评估理论有效性。忽视形式化视角将导致计算与实验方法的重大缺陷；若无对普遍原则的精准表述，描述性与解释性充分性均难以实现。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
A significant debate has emerged in response to a paper written by Steven Piantadosi (Piantadosi, 2023) and uploaded to the LingBuzz platform, the open archive for generative linguistics. Piantadosi's dismissal of Chomsky's approach is ruthless, but generative linguists deserve it. In this paper, I will adopt three idealized perspectives -- computational, theoretical, and experimental -- to focus on two fundamental issues that lend partial support to Piantadosi's critique: (a) the evidence challenging the Poverty of Stimulus (PoS) hypothesis and (b) the notion of simplicity as conceived within mainstream Minimalism. In conclusion, I argue that, to reclaim a central role in language studies, generative linguistics -- representing a prototypical theoretical perspective on language -- needs a serious update leading to (i) more precise, consistent, and complete formalizations of foundational intuitions and (ii) the establishment and utilization of a standardized dataset of crucial empirical evidence to evaluate the theory's adequacy. On the other hand, ignoring the formal perspective leads to major drawbacks in both computational and experimental approaches. Neither descriptive nor explanatory adequacy can be easily achieved without the precise formulation of general principles that can be challenged empirically.
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