Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Within the last 15 years, increased interest in the methodology underlying acceptability judgments – the bread and butter of theoretical linguists – has given rise to an approach called Experimental Syntax (Cowart, 1997). Two core questions lie at the heart of this new enterprise, namely (a) to what extent are the data obtained from informal acceptability judgments sound, and (b) what type of theoretical inferences can be drawn on the basis of acceptability judgments? (Sprouse and Almeida, in press). In this talk I will present new experimental data that directly address these two fundamental questions. To address (a), I will consider the availability of pair-list readings in wh/quantifier interactions which have led to controversial judgments in the syntactic literature. To address (b), I will discuss scope facts pertaining to the interaction of numerically quantified expression. All in all, these new data support the conclusion that traditional methods still rest on firm grounds but that the experimental approach nevertheless provides a useful toolkit for the theoretician.-