Palabras peligrosas ^

Las siguientes son palabras que en general los lingüistas noveles

usan incorrectamente. Ellas son un tópico usual de conversación en
las cenas de profesores. No es broma, tenemos vidas aburridas. No
tienen idea de cuánto tiempo gastamos revisando artículos de las
clases, artículos anteriores, estos e incluso trabajos que reseñamos
para publicaciones, cambiando “asumir” por “discutir” o “afirmar”
por “observar”. Estos son términos técnicos y necesitar usarse con
cuidado.
.
Claim: una aserción o afirmación es una idea nueva (a veces no
tanto) sobre la que ud va a argumentar.
Afirmo que los adverbios del francés se adjuntan al nodo T.

I claim that the FAITH constraint is ranked higher than *STUPID

constraint.
Son afirmaciones grandes enunciados como las tesis u otros más
pequeños dentro de un parágrafo, y también las conclusiones
Confusión común: La gente usa el término afirmar para
querer decir simplemente observer o asumir.
☹Afirmo que en Quebec se habla francés [no se siguen pruebas].
Esta es o bien una observación o una suposición . la aserción debe
ser seguida por argumentos.

Observación: Una observación es una descripción de una parte de

los datos. An observation is a description of a piece of data.
Observo que en irlandés todas las palabras que terminan en el
sufijo - ín toman el plural del morfema- í-
Uso peligroso: No se puede usar observar para querer significar
afirmar o analizar.
☹Observo que el adverbio se adjunta al nodo T.
No se puede observar esto porque no se puede observar un análisis
abstracto. Lo que se puede hacer es afirmarlo.

Assume/Assumption: An assumption is any part of your paper that

you are
not going to argue for.
Explicit vs. Non-Explicit:
o Assumptions can be explicitly stated, in which cases they
typically associated with a CITATION.
I assume following Carnie (1995) that phrasality is
underspecified in head movement constructions.
o An important caveat about the use of cases like the above:
Typically, if you are assuming it, the person you cited is
claiming it (and hopefully proving it…). So be careful NEVER
to say anything like the following:
☹Carnie (1995) assumes that phrasality is
underspecified.
This is highly unlikely. It is probably the case that Carnie
claimed or argued that phrasality is underspecified. The only
time that such statements are appropriate is when you are
attacking the argument Carnie is making because it is based on
false premises -- which are often assumptions. Only when you
are explicitly referring to an author’s premise should you use a
sentence like the one above. Never use it to refer to their claims.
o Assumptions can sometimes be partly explicit. For example, if
you say “I am assuming the basic framework of Chomsky
1999’s phase theory”, then you need not go into all the citations
that came before this on every detail of phase theory. (Although
you might want to cite particular things that are critical)
o Some assumptions are completely Non-explicit. These are the
ones that are often at the heart of poor argumentation! Or they
can just be parts of frameworks, i.e. necessarily unproven (in
the sense that you didn’t prove them) ideas necessary to get the
job done. (E.g., sentences are structured, there are constituents,
There are parts of speech, There are functional categories, etc.)
Sometimes you have to make assumptions that aren’t proven or
have
citations, but lie outside the scope of your paper. Such assumptions
should always be explicit. Let’s say, for example, that there is no
published or unpublished analysis for Irish Psych Noun
constructions
but I need these examples to prove a point about something else,
probably because they provide the right context for other examples.
I
can assume an analysis for these, but I need to be explicit that (a)
no
evidence for this analysis has ever been presented for this and (b)
this
is a weakness in my own analysis. Footnotes are good for this.
Dangerous uses:
o Using assume to mean “claim” or “conclude” about your own
work
☹ On the basis of these facts, I assume that Pangur loves
tuna.
o Referring to a claim that you’ve made as an assumption:
☹ Above I assumed that French nouns are all
prepositions. (When you’ve just finished ARGUING that
they are.
o (already mentioned above): Saying someone assumes
something when they claim it (and you are assuming it.)
☹ Chomsky (1981) assumes that binding is governed by
c-command.
o Assuming something crucial/controversial to your analysis
without citation or discussion.
☹ I assume that all nouns in English are actually
prepositions.
Argue/Prove/Show/Conclude/Argument:
Arguments are crucial to successful linguistic research. They all
have:
1) A claim/A thesis/Hypothesis (a new theoretical or
technical contribution)
2) A set of premises (givens)
a) These can either be previously proven
assumptions (made by you or others.)
b) New observations about data that you are
making for the first time.
3) A conclusion about the sequence of premises.
We’re going to investigate the forms of argumentation later next
week
Dangerous Uses:
o Using argument when you mean analysis. E.g. giving a tree for
a sentence and then saying “☹I have argued that the structure of
of French caustives involves a unique little v”. No, you have
CLAIMED this, you need evidence to argue/prove/conclude it.
Drawing a tree provides an analysis, it does not provide an
argument.
o Using argue when you mean claim. I.e., when you make a
claim and you don’t in fact argue for it. This tends to happen
more with show and conclude but it’s the same issue.
o Using argue to mean assume. This generally happens at the
beginning of papers.
Data/Evidence vs. Analysis:
For reasons that are unclear to me, people often mix up their
analysis
with the object that they are studying. For example, people will often
refer to a tree or tableau as “evidence” for their claim. No, this is not
evidence, this is your analysis of the evidence.
o Data are premises of a certain sort. They are never conclusions.
o Analyses are conclusions.
o Analyses are only premises if they have previously been argued
to be true. (I.e. are assumptions)
Be very careful about this!