The Relationship between Empirical Data and Semantic Theory实证数据与语义理论之间的关系.docVIP

The Relationship between Empirical Data and Semantic Theory Ingebj?rg Tonne, 07.09.2001 Delimitation of the Task The title given to me for this lecture is The Relationship between Empirical Data and Semantic Theory. The title points to intriguing issues in the philosophy of science. The title also describes an extensive subject matter. For the present lecture, I delimit the range of inquiry to formal semantic theory. I furthermore choose to focus on the following two related questions: Q1 What is special about semantics compared to other linguistic disciplines with regard to developing and testing theories? Q2 What type of empirical data is particularly useful for the development and testing of semantic theories? Overview of the Lecture I approach the questions by first placing linguistic theory construction in a general philosophico-scientific frame. In relation to this general discussion, I then describe the somewhat problematic dichotomy data and interpreted data, also called facts. I thereafter contrast the use of intuition with that of text corpora as empirical data. I subsequently look at what is particular to semantics in this philosophico-scientific scheme; that is, what semantic facts are, why and how corpora should be used in semantics, and how the use of corpora may influence the formulation and testing of semantic theory. In this lecture, I use elements from my thesis, Progressives in Norwegian and the Theory of Aspectuality, to illustrate how the development of semantic analyses can be seen to depend crucially on the extraction of facts from text corpora. In my thesis, the methodology sketched in the present lecture is assumed but not explicated. Finally, I conclude with respect to my two main questions Q1 and Q2. Linguistics and the Procedure for Developing Scientific Laws In the hypothetico-deductive method for developing natural scientific laws, the scientist begins with an event or a fact