Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Friday 30 May 2003 12:52, c stirling bartholomew wrote:
> on 5/30/03 10:39 AM, Peter Kirk wrote:
> > I don't have a single grammatical framework. I'm not sure how far that
> > is a helpful concept. When I was in SIL I learned to be careful of
> > frameworks ...
>
> Yes, one needs to take a rather polygamist attitude towards "frameworks"
> move form one to another, mix them together ... borrow, steal and transform
> elements from various schools and come up with a personal language model
> that is so esoteric that no one understands what you are saying ... :-)))

Believe it or not, that's what I do ;-)

> On the other hand, I have over several decades run into a lot of "true
> believers" who thought they were carrying the torch for some model (e.g.,
> Chomsky '95 or SFL Holliday). These folks tend to be perennially upset when
> the rest of the world doesn't understand what they are saying.

Part of my problem is that I don't use a full-blown Chomsky model.  So even 
those who know Chomsky don't understand me *whine* *sob* *boo hoo* (okay, I'm 
better now).  The model that I use as my starting point is somewhere between 
his "aspects" model and his later "extended standard theory" with a few 
modifications of my own, particularly having to do with what I like to call 
"social convention," which deals with such things as deliberate grammatical 
formations and the unpredictability of poetry.  However, I do begin the whole 
thing with deep grammar vs. surface grammar, as well as phrase structure 
rules plus transformations.  From there, it's a bit of a mulligan stew, but 
in terms of the current climate of TG theory, it's not terribly Chomskyan 
even though it's transformational-generative.  Does that muddy things up 
sufficiently?

> I prefer to take the salvage approach, steal a few good ideas from marginal
> models and leave the rest of it alone,  refusing to get caught up in
> defending someone else's system.

I couldn't agree more.  That's why I abandoned Chomsky right around the time 
that he came up with trace theory (those "phantom slots" that were mentioned 
before).

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur