linguistic structures - Professor Binkert's Webpage - Oakland ...

At this point, let us consider only the question of the number of units, putting aside the matter of
labels until the chapter on syntax. Linguists determine structural units such as the units of a sentence
by attempting to manipulate the words in that sentence in one of three ways: REFERENCE,
OMISSION, and PLACEMENT. Great caution is needed during such investigations because, as
we have seen, the facts of language are largely hidden. It is easy to be misled. Sometimes various
manipulations produce conflicting results. This merely means that the matter is more hidden than
first imagined and that other supporting data, perhaps even from other languages, must be looked
at. For this reason, the more arguments that can be marshaled to support a particular
characterization, the more justified it is.
Introductory linguistics students make a number of incorrect assumptions when they attempt to show
that a characterization is justified. First, they assume that the analysis should be obvious or, at least,
readily clear after a little thought. Second, they assume that there are unique, formulaic, infallible,
and unambiguous procedures available for them to apply to the problem. Third, they assume that
they do not know what the correct analysis is. All of these assumptions are wrong. The facts of
language are not at all clear, and there are no procedures available by which one can quickly
discover the best characterization of the data. If this were correct, the job of linguistics would have
been completed long ago. In truth, grammatical characterization is only in its infancy. Also, all
native speakers, because they are native speakers, know which sentences, out of an infinite list of
sentences, are grammatical and which are ungrammatical. Native speaker competence demands
such knowledge. Therefore, the problem is to learn how to access the unconscious knowledge one
has by asking the appropriate questions. In regard to (24), consider the following data:
(25) Reference: the elements of sentences can be substituted as units.
a. Who will resign? (Who replaces the president in a question.)
b. The president will announce that he will resign. (He replaces the president in
reference.)
(26) Omission: the elements of sentences are omitted as units.
a. The president will resign if the first lady asks him to _______.
b. The president will resign, and the first lady will _______ too.
(27) Placement: other elements cannot break up units.
a. Eventually the president will resign.
b. The president eventually will resign.
c. The president will eventually resign.
d. The president will resign eventually.
e. *The eventually president will resign.
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