PREFACE

Can linguistics achieve its long-standing goal of becoming a science, or must it turn back to philosophy and renew its dependence on logic and the theory of knowledge?

Linguistics seems poised today at the point where physics was several centuries ago. Ancient preconceptions still block its way to modern science, not having been pushed very far aside by the newer methods. This essay attempts to remove some of the obstacles left in the path by tradition, and press on in the direction of science.

The history of science clearly shows that any idea, assumption, or theory—no matter how arrived at, no matter how new or how encrusted with tradition—must pass the tests of comparison against observational evidence before it can be allowed to survive as a part of science. There is no shortcut or substitute for the program and methods of science. Our only defense against fictions, fads, and false prophets is to refuse to believe anything that has not been scientifically justified, no matter how intuitive, rational, or modish it may seem.

When theories have been tested and shown to agree with observation, we may accept them tentatively, pending further tests against additional evidence should any doubts arise. Even the testing of theories that prove to be false sometimes has the positive effect of pointing the way to newer theories that better accord with the evidence. Observation and experiment also sometimes reveal unforeseen phenomena and thus lead to new discoveries. By these means science has saved us from error and has increased our secure understanding of nature.

We attempt here a consistent application of the program and methods of modern science to the problems of linguistics. Some of the most strongly held traditional views in the discipline are tested. They do not agree with the evidence and must be rejected. Out of this grows a new position that passes the same preliminary tests. Then the two positions are put to further test against a wider range of observational evidence.

I wish to acknowledge the great debt of gratitude that I owe to my teachers in the University of Chicago Department of Physics around 1950, particularly my dissertation advisor, Marcel Schein, and many stimulating professors, among them Samuel K. Allison, Enrico Fermi, Murray Gell-Mann, Frank C. Hoyt, Ernest H. Hutten, Maria Goeppert Mayer, John R. Platt, Edward Teller, Harold Voorhees, Gregor Wentzel, William H. Zachariasen, and Clarence Zener. I have tried to follow the vision of science that they imparted.

An early version of some of the material presented here on the two alternatives facing linguistics was read to the linguistics departments of the University of Chicago and of Northwestern University in March 1981, and distributed informally. In August 1982 a short paper was presented to the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS) and subsequently published in the proceedings, followed in the next three years by three more papers there. The discussions resulting from these presentations, and other informal discussions with students and colleagues over the years, have helped me to foresee and try to meet many of the usual sorts of objections. I have been particularly aided in coming to terms with the subject by comments, sometimes unwitting, sometimes pointed, sometimes studied, from Jan Terje Faarlund, Donald W. Fiske, Kenneth E. Foote, Robert A. Fox, Paul Friedrich, Eric P. Hamp, Charles F. Hockett, Carol L. Hofbauer, Ilene Lanin-Kettering, James D. McCawley, Eugene A. Nida, W. Keith Percival, Barbara Rubenstein, Michael Silverstein, Don R. Swanson, Stuart-Morgan Vance, and Margaret Zabor.

Preliminary versions of the manuscript were read by Daniel G. Freedman, John Goldsmith, Sol H. Krasner, Karen Landahl, Leonard Linsky, Johanna Nichols, Milton B. Singer, and Dorin Uritescu. I have appreciated their reactions and hope they will approve of the final form.

I should particularly like to thank Arnold C. Satterthwait for reading the manuscript with care at a crucial juncture and providing valuable criticisms and suggestions.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the importance to this research of the environment afforded by the University of Chicago, which encourages and facilitates interdisciplinary research. I have particularly appreciated the spirit of academic tolerance and friendliness cultivated by its Department of Linguistics, and the quality and depth of the collection housed in its Library. The University has provided research funds from the Spencer Foundation and the Benton Education Research Fund, and from the Division of the Social Sciences, The Division of the Humanities, and the Graduate Library School.

I have also enjoyed the considerable benefits of membership in the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS). Its campaign against narrow-mindedness, sectarianism, and dogma in linguistics and related disciplines makes a major contribution to linguistic life, and the quality of the colleagueship that it offers is outstanding.

To my wife, Jean H. Yngve, who has helped more than she can know, I give my heartfelt thanks, and to her I dedicate this book.

Victor H. Yngve

Dune Acres, Indiana
May, 1986