"Evaluating the Lexical Hypothesis about Otagai" (to appear) in Linguistic Research (a journal published in Seoul) has been made available in the "Downlodable Papers" page.

The handout for the 12/11 talk will be something like this.

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 (A Colloquium on Generative Grammar) (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

This talk will also be at:
Konkuk University, College of Liberal Arts Facult Research Building Rm#301.

The same place as the 12/11 talk.

Handout Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty: A proposal and implications, is a revised version of Handout #1 in my Syntax Seminar at USC in the fall of 2009, which is a substantially revised version of the handouts used for my talks in Kyoto University and the one at Kyushu University in May 2009.

Although it does not contain empirical illustration of my proposal, it should give people some idea about the proposal, to be discussed in various ways, in my talks in Seoul and Fukuoka in the coming two weeks.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

It will be at:
"Moonkwadae Kyosooyeongoodong #301" (College of Liberal Arts, Faculty Research Building Rm#301)

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 (A Colloquium on Generative Grammar) (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

The abstract is:

In the seventh lecture of his 1964 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University, Richard Feynman states: "In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science." How we can approach the language faculty in accordance with this general scientific method is the main topic of my talk. I start with the basic assumptions about the Computational System, testability and learning from errors. More specifically, my starting assumptions are (i) that at the center of the language faculty is the Computational System as suggested in Chomsky 1993, (ii) that we want to ensure testability for our hypotheses, and (iii) we want to maximize our chances of learning from disconfirmation of our predictions. Adopting these basic assumptions leads to a particular method, called the Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry method. I will first provide its conceptual justification. I will then provide initial illustration of the method by making reference to 'local anaphors' and bound variable anaphora in Japanese. On the basis of this, I will proceed to provide further illustration by addressing the so-called scrambling constructions in Japanese, comparing Ueyama 1998: chap 2; 2003 and Saito 2003. The last illustration of the proposed method is concerned with Miyagawa and Arikawa 2007.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

The abstract is:

Linguistics is often said to be a scientific study of language. However, it seems to be unclear to many people in what sense it is "scientific." What does studying "language" in a "scientific" way mean? One might even wonder if it is possible to do so. In this talk, I address these and related questions. I suggest the minimal requirement that must be met in research concerned with a discovery of the properties of the language faculty insofar as we are interested in making our hypotheses testable and insofar as we want to maximize our chances of learning from the failure of our predictions. The talk consists of (i) conceptual justification of the proposed method (the Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) method), (ii) illustration of the general design of experiments and how the results of an experiment get sorted out, and (iii) actual experiments on some hypotheses and their results.

I will be giving three talks in Seoul and one talk in Fukuoka this month, as indicated below.

12/11 (Fri) 16:30-18:30 at Language Cognition Research Center, Konkuk University (I do not have the room number.)
"The Evaluation-of-Predicted-Schematic-Asymmetry (EPSA) Method: Toward a scientific study of the language faculty"

12/12 (Sat) 10:00-13:00 A Colloquium on Generative Grammar (I do not know where...)
"Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty"

12/13 (Sun) The 8th Korea-Japan Workshop on Linguistics and Language Processing
Kyung Hee University, Seoul
CheongWoon Bldg. Room 506
"The Absence of (Local) Anaphors in Japanese: Empirical Demonstration and its Significance" (4:05-4:40)

12/15 (Tue) at Kyushuu University
"Predicted Schematic Asymmetries"
(I do not know the room number.)

12/4/2009
Handout #1 has been further revised.

9/9/2009
Handout #1 was slightly revised.

9/5/2009
In the "Further Discussion" board (in Discussion) I have provided the URL of Handout #1 in my Syntax Seminar this semester.

6/22/2009
I have made a posting in the "Further Discussion" board (in Discussion) where I have provided the URLs of the handouts used for my Keio presentation and for one of the presentations at Tohoku University. Contrary to what I noted on 6/3/2009 (see below), the Keio talk was a slightly extended version of Tohoku Talk3; cf. [37261] in the "Further Discussion" board in Discuss.

6/10/2009
I will try to upload the handouts of "Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty: a proposal and implications" and "Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science: its goal and how it can be pursued -- with some historical reflections" shortly after the presentations.

6/3/2009
The schedule of my talks at Tohoku Univ. is as follows.

(1) June 12, from 14:40 to 17:50
Toward A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty:
a proposal and implications

(2) June 13, from 9:40 to 10:20 (30 minutes for the talk and 10
minutes for discussion)
Displacement in Natural Language: a case study of Japanese and its implications

(3) June 15, from 14:40 to 16:10
Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science: its goal and how it can be pursued -- with some historical reflections

I do not have the info. concerning the locations.

My Keio talk is scheduled to start at 4:30 pm. (June 17)
At Keio Mita Campus, Higashikan 6F G-SEC Lab.

I do not know how long the talk will be; but I am pretty sure that I will have (at least) 2 hours.

The announced title of my Keio talk is:
A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science

But I may use the same title as the first talk at Tohoku Univ. (see above), which is the same as the second talk at Kyodai and the talk at Kyudai in May. The Keio talk will be basically the same as the first talk at Tohoku Univ. I have been, and will be further, modifying the handout as I continue to present the materials at different places.

5/8/2009
I will give a talk in Seoul on 12/13(Sun) and perhaps two more talks on 12/11(Fr) and 12/12(Sat).

5/3/2009 (slightly modified on 5/8/2008)
I will be giving two talks at Kyoto Univ. on 5/18(Mon) and 5/19(Tue).
The titles of the talks are:

(i) A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science
(ii) A Scientific Study of the Language Faculty

I will also give a talk at Kyushu Univ. on 5/23(Sat). The title of that talk is most likely the same as (i) above.

I am giving a couple of talks in Japan in June. At Tohoku Univ. on 6/12(Fr) and at Keio Univ. on 6/17(Th). The title of the talks is the same as (i) above, i.e., the same as the title of my book manuscript.

I will give another talk at Tohoku Univ on On 6/13(Sat). I have not decided on the title. But it is most likely going to be about "displacement" in Japanese.

5/8/2009
The book manuscript A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science was submitted to a publisher in January and it has been under review.

3/20/2009
I have added a link to Teru Fukaya's 2007 doctoral dissertation at "Works by Teruhiko Fukaya."

1/16/2009
I have added one more posting in the Methodology board, whose content is: If you would like to take a look at the draft, please email me.

1/10/2009
In the Methodology board, I have made a few more postings.

1/9/2009
In the Methodology board, I have provided an updated table of contents of the book I am about to submit to a publisher; the book now contains Appendix after the five chapters. Another posting in the same board mentions four topics that are not going to be covered in the book.

12/5/2008
I have made a new posting "The position of Chomsky on methodology" in the Methodology board.

11/30/2008
I have posted in the Methodology board the table of contents of the book manuscript as of 11/30/2008.

11/11/2008
I have added one posting in the Methodology board.

10/22/2008
A few more postings have been added since 10/7.

10/7/2008
I have added one more brief posting there.

9/25/2008
I have created a thread "Sneak previews of the book I hope I will soon finish" in the Methodology board in Discuss. Some postings will be made on the content of the book.

10/30/2008
A revised version, submitted to the publisher, has been uploaded, replacing the previous version. If you have downloaded the paper before, please be aware that the previous version contains some errors that have been corrected in the version currently available.

8/28/2008
"Model of Judgment Making and Hypotheses in Generative Grammar" by Ayumi Ueyama, to appear in 17th Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, CSLI, Stanford, has been uploaded in the "Works by Ayumi Ueyama" page.

8/27/2008
I was on sabbatical for the entire 2007-2008 academic year, trying to complete my book manuscript. During the sabbatical year, I refrained from making postings here. Now that the classes started at USC, I will start posting things here again.

Although I was not able to complete the book manuscript before the sabbatical was over, I have chapters 1-3 and 5 more or less finished. I think the title of the book will be:

A Foundation of Generative Grammar as an Empirical Science

In due time, I will upload the drafts of the chapters here and also try to post the main points of each chapter.

2/20/2007
The remarks, on the "Downloadable Papers" page, re. Hoji&Ishii 2004 (WCCFL 23) have been made slightly more informative, in regard to their citation-related aspect.

1/31/2007
A couple of new postings have been made in the Methodology board.

1/23/2007
My Kyodai lectures will be 1-3pm and 3:30-5:30pm each day, 2/14-2/16/2006.
Further info. should be available at: http://www.hmn.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/langlogic/index.html (in due time).

1/17/2007
The content of the "Research Interests" page has been updated for the first time since 2003. One new posting has been added in the Generalizations board.

1/13/2007
The following is posted at a Kyodai website (http://www.hmn.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/langlogic/index.html).
For further discussion, please visit the other Discussion boards at this HP. I will try to provide remarks directly related to what is given below in the Further Discussion board.

***
Hoji Kyodai Lectures (2/14-2/16/2006)
Assessing Hypotheses in Generative Grammar

A fundamental working hypothesis in generative grammar is the existence of the language faculty, understood as an algorithm whose input is a set of items taken from the mental Lexicon of the speaker and whose output is a pair of mental representations - one underlying 'meaning' and the other 'sounds'. The main goal of generative grammar can thus be understood as demonstrating the existence of such an algorithm and discovering its properties. Construed in this way, it is not language as an external 'object' but the language faculty that constitutes the object of inquiry. In the terms of the distinction made by Chomsky in the 1960s, generative grammar is concerned with competence rather than with performance.
　　The data in actual research activities in generative grammar, however, is based on acceptability judgments on a given sentence, whether they are introspective judgments by the researchers or their informants or observation of various other types of reactions by 'subjects' in an experimental setting. I.e., what we deal with in an attempt to discover the properties of the speaker/hearer's competence (the Computational System) is his/her performance (i.e., language use, in a broad sense). This makes it crucial, in the context of generative grammatical inquiry as construed above, to articulate how we can extract from performance data evidence for a hypothesis about the properties of the Computational System. The absence of a minimally satisfactory articulation of how to do this is likely to lead to a situation where different (groups of) researchers base their proposals about the Computational System on different sets of speaker judgments, collected in a variety of ways, that are not necessarily uniform or robust, being subject to a great deal of fluctuation and variation not only among speakers but also within a single speaker. This makes it difficult to evaluate competing proposals in a reliable and objective manner. Recent debates in leading journals (e.g., Language, Lingua and Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) about what should qualify as data, about the use of introspective judgments as crucial evidence for or against a theory, etc. seem to suggest that we have not yet developed a means to evaluate the empirical bases of hypotheses in generative grammar that is compelling enough to the majority of the practitioners. An evaluation of a given hypothesis thus tends to have an arbitrary aspect to it, influenced by such factors as whether or not the terms and concepts utilized are of a theory currently in fashion and whether or not it endorses the standard view concerning the validity of alleged empirical generalizations, regardless of how much 'repeatability' obtains in regard to the predicted speaker judgments on the crucial sentences.
　　In my lectures, I will try to review some of the efforts over the past decade to overcome the problem just noted, including some articulation of a concrete means to evaluate (not to arrive at) hypotheses in generative grammar, making specific reference to Japanese as its empirical basis for an illustration of its methodological point. The methodological aspects of its results should be applicable to research on other languages, as long as it deals with interpretations that are claimed to be based crucially on properties of the Computational System.
　　When one aims at discovering the properties of the language faculty as construed above, one must recognize the following: the Computational System's yielding something as its output does not guarantee that the speaker finds it (more precisely, finds its surface manifestation) to be acceptable; after all, non-grammatical as well as grammatical factors must contribute to the ultimate acceptability judgment by the speaker on a given sentence form under a specified interpretation (e.g., one's knowledge about the world, one's belief system, and the like). The Computational System's failure to yield something as its output, on the other hand, should necessarily mean that the 'sentence form' corresponding to such a 'failed representation' should be judged unacceptable under the specified interpretation. If something is predicted to be impossible due to the hypothesized formal properties of the Computational System under discussion, how can some pragmatic adjustment save it? Only by taking this point to heart and by putting forth a hypothesis so as to yield a negative prediction (the prediction that something is impossible (under a specified interpretation)), do we have a hope of making generative grammar an empirical science or of making it a progressive research program in the sense of Lakatos 1970.
　　The major concerns underlying the research reported here are:

(i)　a. 　How can we try to ensure and measure progress in what we do in generative grammar?
　　b. 　How can we tell whether or not given intuitions of ours are likely to be a reflection of the Computational System?

　　Not every observation qualifies as something that must be accounted for by a theory about the Computational System; it must first be demonstrated that it is most likely a reflection of the Computational System. And, for the reasons briefly noted above and further elaborated elsewhere (e.g., Hoji 2006), to do so would require the recognition of the significance of negative predictions insofar as the research in question is aimed at demonstrating the existence of and discovering properties of the Computational System, which is hypothesized to be at the core of the language faculty. This is the central methodological claim in the research reported here and the lectures are meant to illustrate its content and how it relates to actual empirical materials.

Day 1 (2/14) (Bungakubu Higashikan Lecture Room 4)
Session 1
How (I think) we should proceed if the aim of our research is to demonstrate the existence of and discover the properties of the Computational System that is hypothesized at the core of the language faculty. I will try to provide a brief overview of how we have proceeded to isolate certain linguistic intuitions that are likely based on the Computational System. Coreference to BVA (bound variable anaphora) and any BVA to FD-based BVA (i.e., BVA that is based on a c-command relation at LF), and how we have come to identify FD-based BVA, what problems we have faced and are still facing in doing so, how we have tested our hypotheses, and how the FD-based-BVA has been related to other phenomena (such as FD-sloppy readings and local disjointness effects).

Session 2
How one could fail to do what should be done, according to the discussion in Session 1. I will also address general issues of the failure to pay (serious) attention to negative predictions, falsifiability, repeatability, etc., and its consequences (as observed in the field). I will try to go over some correlations among different types of research practice, which seem to me to stem from different types of research orientations and goals.

Day 2 (2/15) (Bungakubu Shinkan Lecture Room 1)
Session 3
Concrete illustration of the methodological points made in Sessions 1 and 2, including how to assess hypotheses in generative grammar -- given that the research goal is as described in Sessions 1 and 2 -- by making reference to two competing analyses of the so-called scrambling construction in Japanese (Ueyama 1998 and Saito 2003). Attempts will also be made to illustrate how one might proceed when one faces apparent disconfirmation of one's negative prediction. The audience will be asked, but not forced, to participate in a series of experiments in class and also on-line afterwards.

Session 4
Questions and comments from the audience, their articulation and responses.
Potential topics to cover, if the time remains, include: (i) attempts to 'apply' the binding theory to Japanese, (ii) quantifier scope, (iii) negation, (iv) ellipsis, and (v) the Subjacency effects and anaphoric dependency. Depending upon how the discussion goes, I may go over some of these topics in relation to the methodological and empirical points made in Sessions 1-3.

Day 3 (2/16) (Bungakubu Shinkan Lecture Room 1)
Session 5
The topics to be chosen from what is listed above for Session 4.

Session 6
Concluding remarks. Reiterating the main concerns and the proposals.

Readings:
General: Hoji 2003.
Day One: The handouts by Ueyama and Hoji for the 2006 Hokudai Kagaku tetsugakkai workshop, Hoji 1997/2006, and Hoji 2006.
Day Two: Ueyama 2002, Saito 2003, Hoji et al. 1999.
Day Three: (It is not clear what will actually be covered in the lectures.) Hayashishita 2004: Chap. 2, 2.2.1, Kataoka 2007 (to appear in Gengokenkyuu).

Hoji 1997/2006, 2003, 2006, Hoji et al 1999, Ueyama 2002, and Hayashishita 2004 are available on-line. Please visit http://www.gges.org/hoji/research/hp-papers.cgi for the first four, and for Ueyama 2002 and Hayashishita 2004, please go to http://www.gges.org/hoji/research/hp-Ayumi.cgi and http://enteroflora.com/linguistics/dissertation.html, respectively. For Kataoka 2007, please email me at hoji@usc.edu.

Hayashishita, J.-R. 2004. Syntactic and Non-Syntactic Scope, Doctoral dissertation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.
Hoji, H. 1997/2006 "Otagai," Ms. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. [Presented at WCCFL 16, University of Washington, March 1997.] Published in A. Ueyama (ed.), 2006. Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora-Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Kyushu University, pp. 126-138.
Hoji, H. 2003. "Falsifiability and Repeatability in Generative Grammar: A Case Study of Anaphora and Scope Dependency in Japanese." Lingua 113/4-6, pp. 377-446.
Hoji, H. 2006. "Two Hypotheses about Scrambling in Japanese," in A. Ueyama (ed)., Theoretical and empirical studies of reference and anaphora-Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Kyushu University, pp. 139-185.
Hoji, H., S. Kinsui, Y. Takubo, and A. Ueyama 1999. "Demonstratives, Bound Variables, and Reconstruction Effects." in Proceedings of the Nanzan GLOW, The Second GLOW Meeting in Asia, September 19-22, 1999. pp. 141-158.
Kataoka, K. 2007. "Negをc-統御する不定語+モ," 『言語研究』131 号 (2007年 3 月刊行予定).
Lakatos, I. 1970. "Falsification and Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press. pp. 91-195.
Saito, M. 2003. "A Derivational Approach to the Interpretation of Scrambling Chains," Lingua 113/4-6, pp.481-518.
Ueyama, A. 1998. Two Types of Dependency. Doctoral dissertation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. (Distributed by GSIL publications. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.)
Ueyama, A. 2002. "Two Types of Scrambling Constructions," in A. Barss (ed.), Anaphora: A Reference Guide, Blackwell.

12/4/2006
I have made another posting on the alleged generalization about zibunzisin in the Generalizations board.

12/1/2006
I will give lectures at Kyoto University next year, 2/14-2/16, 2007. The topic of the lectures will be what I have been discussing here for some time, especially for the past several months. More info. will be provided later, including the URL of the Kyodai website where the time/place of the lectures will be announced (and drafts of the lecture handouts as well, if possible).

11/22/2006
I have posted some remarks on the alleged generalization about zibunzisin in the Generalization board. It makes reference to some postings in the Methodology board (posted on 11/21/2006), but it should not require technical knowledge to understand the point.

11/21/2006
I have made a posting "The continued use of invalid generalizations" in the Methodology board. The posting addresses the alleged generalizations about zibunzisin, and to a lesser degree, about otagai. Further discussion on those issues will be placed in the Generalization board.

11/17/2006
There are a couple of new postings in the Methodology board.
　　　

10/13/2006
I have made a posting in the Further Discussion board that contains the table of contents of my 1990 book manuscript Theories of Anaphora and Aspects of Japanese Syntax."

10/11/2006
I have made a "preview posting" in the Generalization board and a related posting in the Methodology board. The latter is an attempt to begin to state what I consider to be the most crucial aspect of generative grammar. The absence of the understanding of that point in the field at large has resulted in massive confusion, as far as I can tell, which has given rise to part of what Postal (2004) calls junk linguistics (although there are also other factors that must have contributed to it).

9/18/2006
I have made a few postings under [28266] in the Further Discussion board, in relation to my 9/11/2006 remarks here in "What's New."
　

9/11/2006
I have just uploaded Hoji 1990 and Hoji 1991.

Hoji (1990) "On the so-called Overt Pronouns in Japanese and Korean," in E.-J. Baek, ed., Papers from the Seventh International Conference on Korean Linguistics, pp. 61-78.

Hoji (1991) "KARE" in Carol Georgopoulos and Roberta Ishihara, eds., Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language: Essays in Honor of Prof. S.-Y. Kuroda, Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 287-304.

Hoji 1990 was written after Hoji 1991 "Kare," the final version of which had been written in 1989 but did not appear until 1991.

What has compelled me to upload these old papers is what seems to me to be a persistent refusal in the field to recognize that Japanese does not have anything like a 'pronominal system' that deserves to be so called, in light of the formal properties of the 'potential candidates for 'overt pronouns' in the language. I will try to make postings in the Further Discussion board on this topic.

See also Hoji 1995 (NELS), Hoji et al. 2000 (GLOW), and the references cited in the latter.

I am going to copy some (well in fact quite a few) postings from elsewhere to the Methodology board here. Those postings address, among other things, (i), (ii) and (iii).

(i) the goal(s) of generative grammar and practice in generative grammar
(ii) Popper's demarcation criterion and related issues -- many postings make reference to Lakatos' and Feyerabend's works, as well as Popper's.
(iii) how (ii) seem(s) to me to relate to what goes on in generative grammar

In relation to (iii), some postings make reference to Chomsky's remarks that seem to me to be suggestive of his 'methodological stance'.

It might be more appropriate for the first set of postings in the Methodology board to address the goal(s) of generative grammar. But I will start copying postings related to Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery.

Some postings that are related to the above issues are already in the Further Discussion board, which I plan to reorganize later. Hoji 2003 (the "Repeatability and ..." paper in Lingua) and Hoji 2006 (the "Assessing ..." paper) -- both of which can be downloaded at this HP -- can be regarded as an attempt to substantiate and illustrate my views in regard to (i)-(iii) above.

["Message from HH" on the top page of my HP as of 4/10/2006 has been copied below, with some non-substantive changes.]

**4/10/2006**"Assessing Competing Analyses: Two Hypotheses about 'Scrambling' in Japanese" (2006) in Ayumi Ueyama, ed., Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Reference and Anaphora—Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, pp. 139-185 can be downloaded here.

**3/24/2006**
"Otagai," in Ayumi Ueyama, ed., Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Reference and Anaphora—Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Report of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Project No. 15320052, Supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 2006, Kyushu University, pp. 126-138. can also be downloaded here.

**2/19/2006**
The first footnote of my JK 13 paper Reconstruction Effects in Passive and Scrambling in Japanese contains "The page restrictions have forced me to present only a small portion of the empirical, theoretical, and methodological issues that I initially intended to address in the paper. The readers are referred to http://www.gges.org/hoji/ for further discussion. The acknowledgement is given there." But it is perhaps not very transparent how to get to the relevant page; the acknowledgement is given here. (The JK 13 was held in 2003 but I am not sure if the proceedings have been published yet...)

**2/11/2006**
If you are interested in generative grammar as an empirical science, I highly recommend Yoshi Kitagawa's recent paper "PROSODY, SYNTAX AND PRAGMATICS OF WH-QUESTIONS IN JAPANESE" to appear in English Linguistics 22.2 in 2005, pp. 302-346. The paper is available at his HP.