Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T21:10:04.346Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.…

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1961). Some methodological remarks on generative grammar. Word 17. 219–239. (Reprinted in Fodor & Katz, 1964: 384–389 under the title ‘Degrees of grammaticalness’.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. A. & Katz, J. J., eds. (1964). The Structure of Language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Fowler, R. (1967). Linguistics and the analysis of poetry. Critical Survey 3. 78–89.Google Scholar
Fries, C. C. (1952). The Structure of English. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Katz, J. J. (1964). Semi-sentences. In Fodor & Katz (1964: 400–416).Google Scholar
Levin, S. R. (1962). Linguistic Structures in Poetry. (Janua Linguarum, No. 23). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Levin, S. R. (1964). Poetry and grammaticalness. In Lunt, H. G. (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Lyons, J. & Wales, R. J., eds. (1966). Psycholinguistics Papers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, G. A. & Chomsky, N. (1963). Finitary models of language users. Ch. 13 of Luce, R. D., Bush, R. R. & Galanter, E., Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 2. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Thorne, J. P. (1965). Stylistics and generative grammars. JL 1. 49–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorne, J. P. (1966). On hearing sentences. In Lyons & Wales (1966).Google Scholar
Ziff, P. (1964). On understanding ‘Understanding utterances’. In Fodor & Katz (1964: 390–399).Google Scholar