Grammatical characterization and grammatical realization.

People who learn a language from earliest childhood are considered NATIVE SPEAKERSof that language. Knowledge of one’s NATIVE LANGUAGEis quite special and different in many ways from the knowledge one gains studying a language in school, for example, in French class. In particular, native speakers are not generally aware of what they know about their native language and usually cannot describe what they know or explain how they know it. Their knowledge is unconscious. To see this, consider the following sentences, which differ only in that (1b) contains the word that:

(1) a. Do you think the judge will tell the truth?

b. Do you think that the judge will tell the truth?

Every native speaker of English knows that these two sentences are yes/no questions, that is, questions that can get either a positive or negative answer. Now suppose that a person does not know who will tell the truth and wants to find out. In such a case, the person could ask a

WH–question, which is a question that begins with a WH–word like who, what, where, etc. Given sentences like those in (1), every native speaker unconsciously knows that the results of attempting to ask such a WH–question will be different. While (2a) is a perfectly grammatical WH–question related to (1a), (2b), containing the word that, is UNGRAMMATICAL(an asterisk at the beginning of a sentence indicates that it is ungrammatical, which means that it violates some rule).

(2) a. Who do you think will tell the truth?

b. *Who do you think that will tell the truth?

There is a specific principle that rules out sentences like (2b), yet native speakers typically are not consciously aware of what that principle is. Nor can they explain why the word that can be left out of (3a) to produce the synonymous (3b), whereas a similar deletion in (4a) produces the ungrammatical (4b).

(3) a. The lawyers that the judges admire will tell the truth.

b. The lawyers the judges admire will tell the truth.

(4) a. The lawyers that admire the judges will tell the truth.

b. *The lawyers admire the judges will tell the truth.

Again, there is a specific principle that accounts for the ungrammaticality of (4b) which native

speakers must know, at least unconsciously, because they all recognize that (4b) is not a well-formed sentence. About the best that the average native speaker can say about (4b) is that it doesn’t sound right. The same is true of (2b) and, in fact, all ungrammatical sentences. In general, native speakers cannot explain why grammatical sentences are grammatical and why ungrammatical sentences are ungrammatical. Yet they do know the difference between the two.

The principle that predicts the ungrammaticality of (4b) is highly specific: changing admire to know in (3) produces the pair of sentences in (5) which mean the same thing, while changing admire to know in (4) produces the pair of sentences in (6) which mean very different things.

(5) a. The lawyers that the judges know will tell the truth.

(= The ones who will tell the truth are the lawyers that the judges know.)

b. The lawyers the judges know will tell the truth. (=5a)

(6) a. The lawyers that know the judges will tell the truth.

(= The ones who will tell the truth are the lawyers that know the judges.)

b. The lawyers know the judges will tell the truth. (=/ 6a)

Notice also that (6b) looks just like (4b); however, (6b) is grammatical, but (4b) is not. Furthermore, (5a) and (6a) can be expanded as in (7), but a similar expansion of (4a) produces (8) which is not grammatical.

(7) a. The lawyers that the judges know will tell the truth are from Michigan.

b. The lawyers that know the judges will tell the truth are from Michigan.

(8) *The lawyers that admire the judges will tell the truth are from Michigan.

These examples are not gimmicky or atypical; thousands of pairs of grammatical/ungrammatical sentences like them can be found in the linguistics literature. Such abundant examples emphasize that native speakers unconsciously know a vast and detailed array of facts about their language, and that these facts are largely hidden from introspection and analysis. It is simply incorrect to say that the facts of language – the grammar – are well known to (even educated) speakers. This means, of course, that there is a difference between having knowledge of a language and being able to talk about that knowledge. Linguists refer to the unconscious knowledge that native speakers have of their native language as their LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE.

In view of the above, modern linguistics is principally concerned with two broad empirical problems which have often been referred to as the GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERIZATION PROBLEMand the GRAMMATICAL REALIZATION PROBLEM. Grammatical characterization entails describing the LINGUISTIC COMPETENCEof native speakers, that is, discovering and generalizing the grammatical principles that constitute their unconscious knowledge of their native language. In grammatical characterization, a linguist describes what the principles are which determine the grammaticality of examples like (1) through (8).

Grammatical realization, on the other hand, entails accounting for native speakers’ LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE, that is, their acquisition and use of their unconscious knowledge. In grammatical realization, a linguist describes how such principles become part of the linguistic competence of native speakers, in short, how children achieve mastery of their native language.

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