Is it the end of (generative) linguistics as we know it?

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the current state of generative linguistics, highlighting challenges to its foundational hypotheses and proposing updates for its formal and empirical frameworks to maintain its relevance.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive critique of generative linguistics, emphasizing the need for precise formalizations and standardized empirical datasets to address recent challenges.

Findings

Challenges to the Poverty of Stimulus hypothesis

Critique of simplicity in Minimalism

Need for formal updates and empirical datasets

Abstract

A significant debate has emerged in response to a paper written by Steven Piantadosi (Piantadosi, 2023) and uploaded to the LingBuzz platform, the open archive for generative linguistics. Piantadosi's dismissal of Chomsky's approach is ruthless, but generative linguists deserve it. In this paper, I will adopt three idealized perspectives -- computational, theoretical, and experimental -- to focus on two fundamental issues that lend partial support to Piantadosi's critique: (a) the evidence challenging the Poverty of Stimulus (PoS) hypothesis and (b) the notion of simplicity as conceived within mainstream Minimalism. In conclusion, I argue that, to reclaim a central role in language studies, generative linguistics -- representing a prototypical theoretical perspective on language -- needs a serious update leading to (i) more precise, consistent, and complete formalizations of foundational intuitions and (ii) the establishment and utilization of a standardized dataset of crucial empirical evidence to evaluate the theory's adequacy. On the other hand, ignoring the formal perspective leads to major drawbacks in both computational and experimental approaches. Neither descriptive nor explanatory adequacy can be easily achieved without the precise formulation of general principles that can be challenged empirically.