In response to Rob Freeman, who wrote:
Perhaps you can tell me what the current orthodoxy is towards what I
understand was Chomsky's earliest controversial result: that distributional
methods applied to language result in a loss of generality of
representation. I.e. In "Logical basis of linguistic theory"(at least as
reported by Fred Newmeyer in his "Generative Linguistics -- A Historical
Perspective"):
"Halle has pointed out that it is generally impossible to provide a level of
representation meeting the biuniqueness condition without destroying the
generality of rules..." (Chomsky, LBLT)
I understand this was Chomksy's earliest controversial result, that it
created quite a stir, and essentially killed the distributional analysis
which had been the dominant linguistic orthodoxy of the day.
Am I right that his objection was never really successfully addressed, only
forgotten? I can't find too much about it. Perhaps you know.
------------------------------
The best discussion of the content, background, and impact of Halle's
argument is to be found in Stephen Anderson's paper (
http://bloch.ling.yale.edu/Public/Royaumont.pdf).
I have a detailed webpage -- from a course I did last year -- on the
development of early generative phonology from its structuralist
antecedents:
http://humfs1.uchicago.edu:16080/~jagoldsm/Webpage/Courses/HistoryOfPhonolog
y/index.htm
There is a discussion of Harris's views in my paper in the current issue of
Language (available also at
http://humfs1.uchicago.edu:16080/~jagoldsm/Webpage/Courses/HistoryOfPhonolog
y/index.htm )
And a brief overview of the history of this area in a paper by Bernard Laks
and myself, at
http://humfs1.uchicago.edu:16080/%7Ejagoldsm/Papers/GenerativePhonology.pdf
The controversy you refer to did not speak to the question of distributional
methods in phonology or elsewhere; that was a separate issue, and the
perspective that Chomsky criticizes was his interpretation of Harris
(inaccurate, in my view), and Harris took what other linguists of the period
(like Charles Hockett) thought was a wildly extreme position, though they
recognized that he did it in part in order to see the consequences of
adopting a strong methodological position.
John Goldsmith
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