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On the interpretation of ‘nonsense strings’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Roger Fowler
Roger Fowler
Affiliation:
School of English and American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich
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Extract

Katz's statement of the core of the problem of ungrammaticalness is worth quoting at length:‘The knowledge that enables a speaker to understand sentences – his knowledge of the rules of the grammar – must be identically the knowledge that enables him to understand semi-sentences, for semi-sentences are understood in terms of their well-formed parts. Moreover, the knowledge a speaker uses to recognize the respects in which a semi-sentence is ungrammatical is also his knowledge of grammaticality: knowledge of the grammatical rules is here employed to discover instances of their violation.…

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Articles
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Journal of Linguistics , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 1969 , pp. 75 - 83
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

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