Aspects of the relationship bewteen theories of grammar and theories of processing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the pros and cons of the relationship between theories of grammar and psycholinguistic research conducted in laboratories. It is argued that current optimism about the benefits that psycholinguistic research may bring to those interested in the nature of language may be hard to reconcile with the difficulties there are in synchronising the research agendas of linguistics and psycholinguistics. The main appeal of psycholinguistic research lies in its superior testability standards. Through a brief examination of the simple notion of apposition, it is argued that linguistics is indeed irremediably circular and inconclusive, and that that is why some look to experimental research in language as a way of circumventing the endemic weakness of grammatical theories. However, psycholinguists cannot avoid a dependence on syntactic descriptions in order to formulate their own predictions. This makes for more undesired circularity. Finally, the paper seeks to show that at least some experiments can shed light on grammatical structure. A key issue will be to ponder how psycholinguistic tools can help us meet the challenge of psychological adequacy