judgements about the syntactic and semantic properties of linguistic expressions,
metalinguistic judgements about acceptability, grammaticality, ambiguity,
coreference/binding, and the like.’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 95). And Devitt's model for these
linguistic intuitions is that they are ‘opinions resulting from ordinary empirical
investigation, theory-laden in the way all such opinions are.’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 98). On
Devitt's view, speakers’ linguistic intuitions are central processor responses to
linguistic phenomena, like utterances. Linguistic intuitions, as he claims of intuitions
generally, di er from other empirical, central processor responses in being fairly quick
and unre ective.
Devitt lists as the third major conclusion of his book, ‘Speakers’ linguistic intuitions do
not re ect information supplied by the language faculty. They are immediate and fairly
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unre ective empirical central-processor responses to linguistic phenomena. They are
not the main evidence for grammars.’ (see the glossary of
Devitt [2006a]
). Devitt argues
that speakers’ linguistic intuitions are not the upshot of a dedicated system of
grammatical competence interacting with linguistic performance systems. Rather, on
his account, linguistic intuitions are fairly unre ective or ‘low level’, theory-laden
judgements about the grammatical properties of languages. They are ‘low level’ in that
speakers do not typically enter into much serious re ection upon the properties of their
language or have knowledge of any scienti c linguistics. They are theory-laden in the
sense that they involve central processing, or general intelligence, in working out the
properties of external linguistic stimuli, albeit relatively immediately. A consequence of
Devitt's model is that we should trust a speaker's intuitions ‘to the degree that we have
con dence in her empirically based expertise about the kinds under investigation.’
(
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 104).
Devitt asks us to consider a comparison with a palaeontologist. The palaeontologist
might be in the eld searching for fossils. If she notices a piece of white stone
protruding from a grey rock, she might form an immediate and unre ective judgement
that the white stone is a piece of a pig's jawbone. We might trust the palaeontologist's
judgement much more than we would trust an ordinary observer's judgement if the
palaeontologist has spent years in the eld studying, and so has a great deal of
experience of old bones. In short she is ‘a reliable indicator of the properties of fossils.’
(
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 104).
On Devitt's view, this account of theory-laden intuitive judgements ‘does not need to be
modi ed’ where we are investigating the products of cognitive systems (
Devitt
[2006a]
, p. 106). Just as a palaeontologist re ects on the old bones and other objects
they have been surrounded with, so a speaker might re ect on the language they and
their speech community produce, and form linguistic concepts and opinions (which is
not to say that they will become an expert). In virtue of producing and being surrounded
by many utterances, speakers are ‘in a position to have well-based opinions about
language by re ecting on these tokens.’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 109). Though they may not
in fact re ect on the nature of their language, Devitt claims that such ‘intuitive
opinions’ as they do have are empirical central-processor responses, the result of
‘education and re ection’. Hence, Devitt rejects the theoretical inference from the
character of our linguistic intuitions to a competence system organized according to
grammatical principles. He claims that his own explanation is more ‘modest’ in
appealing only to the generation of intuitive judgements by central processing. And he
points out that everyone should be committed to the existence of central processing and
its role in forming judgements.
4.2 Devitt's model and belief-independence
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4.2 Devitt's model and belief-independence
But Devitt's view that linguistic intuitions are theory-laden judgements, derivative of
central processor responses to external stimuli, is inconsistent with the pre-doxastic
nature of linguistic intuition and its encapsulation. The view that linguistic intuitions
are amongst our theoretically integrated judgements seems unable to accommodate the
persistence of impressions of grammaticality and ungrammaticality through contrary
beliefs. So Devitt would have to try and explain these phenomena away somehow. Devitt
would also have to explain why these intuitive impressions seem to be more than just
‘relatively unre ective’. They seem to be mandatory. We can't help but hear the sounds
of our language as structured and meaningful, forming an intuitive take on their form
and interpretation independently of our choosing to re ect upon them. Further, our
linguistic intuitions evidence special hierarchical and recursive principles that are
highly language-speci c. Devitt's view that these intuitions are central processor
responses would have to accommodate these facts and compete with explanations that
appeal to a dedicated competence system. I’ll argue (Sections 4.3–4.5) that further
failures of Devitt's account reinforce the orthodox inference to the best explanation to
the properties of the dedicated grammatical competence system.
4.3 Devitt's model and folk theory
Devitt's view of intuitions is ‘based on a view of intuitions in general’ (
Devitt [2006a]
,
p. 10); that they are conditioned by empirical theory. Intuitions, on Devitt's model,
generally di er from other such theory-laden judgements ‘only in being fairly
immediate and unre ective.’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 10). Consequently, for Devitt, the
grammarian is a good source of intuitions because he has spent a lot of time re ecting
on language and has more theoretical knowledge:
If the person is a linguist then she will of course deploy her concepts from her
linguistic theory […] I think we should generally prefer the intuitions of linguists
to those of the folk in seeking evidence. (
Devitt [2006b]
, fn. 22)
Ordinary informants are not such good sources of data, on Devitt's model, because they
don't possess scienti c theories involving concepts like c-command and binding;
perhaps having only a little knowledge of verbs, nouns, and the like. This is in stark
contrast to the orthodox model, according to which speakers are not being asked for
their opinions about such properties of linguistic material at all. They are being asked
only to respond to linguistic material in terms of such broad categories as how
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acceptable and intelligible they nd it, which interpretations of it they come to, and
how di cult it is for them to achieve certain readings. On the orthodox model, the
intuitions gathered by linguists are just data to be explained rather than assessed
according to their credentials as bits of theory or opinion. In contrast, for Devitt, a
speaker's linguistic intuitions are amongst their theory-laden judgements and these
intuitive judgements constitute a less powerful theory than the linguist’s.
To explain how ordinary speakers’ theory-laden judgements could count as evidence
for the science of language, Devitt once drew an analogy with our intuitions about
physical reality:
Just as physical intuitions […] can be produced by central processor responses to
appropriate phenomena, so also can linguistic intuitions. These linguistic
phenomena are not to be discovered by looking inward at our own competence but
by looking outward at the social role that symbols play in our lives. When linguists
do this now, they do not start from scratch. People have been thinking about these
matters for millennia. The result of this central processor activity is folk, or
otherwise primitive theory: the linguistic wisdom of the ages. The wisdom will be
a good albeit not infallible guide to the nature of linguistic symbols. (
Devitt and
Sterelny [1989]
, p. 522)
The analogy is unhelpful for Devitt. If it were good then our ordinary beliefs about
physical reality could play an important evidential role in physics. But in physics one
does not expect the folk's opinions to inform scienti c theory, and there is no reason to
assume that the concepts and constructs of ordinary thinkers carry over to scienti c
debate. Equally, there's no reason to expect folk opinion to constrain linguistics. As Neil
Smith remarks:
In physics one does not expect folk views to inform the expert's theory
construction, and while ethnoscience is itself an interesting eld of inquiry, there
is no reason to assume a priori that the concepts and constructs of pre-scienti c
debate should carry over unchanged into formal theories of I-language. (
Smith
[2000]
, p. xv)
It is therefore a consequence of Devitt's model of linguistic intuitions that native
speakers’ intuitions should not be a orded the central evidential role that they are
a orded.
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Devitt might try to soften this result by maintaining that speakers’ theory-laden
judgements about grammar are largely correct. But if this were true then much that is
debated by grammarians could be settled by appeal to speakers’ intuitions, requiring
little scienti c theorizing. Despite Devitt's commitment to ‘the linguistic wisdom of the
ages’, he recognizes that his model would require some revision of existing
methodology:
Where the judgements are those of the ordinary speaker, the theory will be folk
linguistics. We do not generally take theory-laden folk judgements as primary data
for a scienti c theory. So we should not do so in linguistics. (
Devitt [2006a]
, p.
102)
As Devitt agrees, it would be irresponsible to attribute so much signi cance to the folk's
theory-laden judgements.
4.4 A modification to Devitt's model
Devitt has modi ed his view that linguistic intuitions are like theory-laden judgements
about other aspects of the world in two ways. First, he now stresses that they are most
comparable to intuitions we have about the outputs of other human competences such
as ‘touch-typing and thinking’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, pp. 593–4). Second, he now allows a
role for grammatical competence in linguistic intuition. On Devitt's model, a speaker
asked about a string of words, which rst simulates the behaviour of attempting to
produce or comprehend a string, and in doing so engages their grammatical
competence. There is then some quick central processor re ection upon this experience
in which speakers employ their theoretical grammatical concepts to arrive at a
judgement.
But even this modi ed version of Devitt's model is inadequate. Smith brings out the
problem that remains with Devitt's model using the following example (
Smith
[unpublished]
, p. 37):
(15) Bill believes that Bush is dangerous.
(16) Bill believes Bush is dangerous.
If we were to ask a speaker, presented with cases like (15) and (16), to do some quick
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re ection, and say whether they believed the that in sentences containing believes is
optional, they would probably say that it was entirely optional. But it is clear that this
re ection is not what grammarians are targeting in probing a speaker's linguistic
intuitions. When we elicit speaker's intuitive responses to strings like (17), we get an
intuitive judgement that reveals their grammar but is indi erent to such central
processor, theory-laden judgements.
(17) Bill believes that Hilary to be intelligent.
It is the language that speakers are immediately cognitively sensitive to, data of the
latter sort, and not the irrelevant theory-laden re ections that the generative
grammarian is targeting. In plumbing the speaker's intuitions, we want to nd out
what the speaker can immediately recognize as part of his language, and what
structured interpretations he can get. As Longworth puts it:
The subject may be especially well placed to report on how things seem to them,
but should not be taken to be authoritative about whether apparent properties are
determined by their language systems […] In short, the linguist for the most part
aims to treat subjects as objects of inquiry, rather than fellow inquirers.
(
Longworth [unpublished]
, p. 11)
It is Devitt's commitment, not shared by the orthodox model, that linguistic intuitions
are a speaker's theory-laden re ections on grammatical matters that causes much of
his consternation with the orthodox view. He asks us to compare the linguistic case to
other cases of cognitive capacities where a set of rules is somehow encoded in us such
as thinking and typing. As Devitt rightly points out, there is no path from the
embodiment of these rules in a subject to that subject's having correct beliefs about
these rules (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 118). Devitt correctly infers that there is no such path
from the grammatical rules encoded in the competence system to theory-laden beliefs
expressed in linguistic judgements. But as Longworth rightly notes, the orthodox model
does not treat speakers as making authoritative theory-laden judgements about
grammar because it does not treat them as theoreticians, the grammarian's ‘fellow
inquirers’, at all. The commitment to a theory-laden conception of linguistic intuition
is Devitt's own: not one the orthodox model shares. To be clear, proponents of the
orthodox model should agree with Devitt that there is no path from the encoding of the
deep principles of grammatical competence in a speaker to their having correct beliefs
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about those rules. Correct beliefs about the principles of grammatical competence are
what grammatical theory aims for, not what speakers are taken to provide for the
grammarian. Therefore, the orthodox view creates no mysterious access to the
principles that characterize speakers’ competences.
4.5 Devitt's alternative view of the evidence
Ultimately, Devitt's own model of linguistic intuitions leads him to the following
conclusion: ‘we do not generally take theory-laden folk judgements as primary data for
a scienti c theory. So we should not do so in linguistics’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 102). Devitt
thinks that ‘Linguists greatly exaggerate the evidential role of the intuitive judgements
of ordinary speakers.’ (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 120). He argues that we should not give the
linguistic judgements of ordinary native speakers a central evidential role in
grammatical theory. Rather he claims we should seek evidence primarily from a
combination of corpuses, what speakers would say and understand in linguistic
contexts, and the intuitions of linguists. He says:
The main evidence for grammars is not found in the intuitions of ordinary
speakers but rather in a combination of the corpus, the evidence of what we would
say and understand, and the intuitions of linguists. (
Devitt [2006a]
, p. 100)
On my view the orthodox model is left unscathed by Devitt's criticisms and it does not
require revision of linguists’ methodology. But it is worth considering the alternative
conception of the evidence that Devitt is proposing as I will argue that it has some
unwelcome consequences.
Although linguists, like other scientists, have theoretical hunches (a sense of the sort of
explanation certain phenomena might receive) this is not what they are interested in
when probing their native knowledge of language. Theoretical hunches, whatever role
they do play in theory construction, are not treated as evidence. As Fiengo notes:
[W]e say, perhaps of a linguist, that the linguist has the theoretical intuition that
that is the analysis which should be given of the sentence in question. The term
‘intuition’, in this case, has a sense rather like that of ‘hunch’. Linguists say they
have such intuitions or hunches, but they never constitute the data of Linguistics,
rather they apparently occur among linguists during the practice of Linguistics, as
they do among physicists during the practice of physics […] And on the other hand,
my intuition that the sentence ‘Flying planes can be dangerous’ is ambiguous is
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nothing like a hunch. (
Fiengo [2003]
, p. 256)
So, the ‘hunches’ or theoretical intuitions of linguists will not form a central source of
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