Consider the component of generative syntax referred to as X-bar theory and

discuss to what extent this theory meets the requirements of descriptive and
explanatory adequacy. Illustrate your points with specific examples.
Introduction
Since Chomsky (1964) proposed several standards of the depth of the generative
syntax, the depth has been divided into three different levels from low to high,
namely, observational adequacy, descriptive adequacy and explanatory
adequacy, which become the purposes to certain extent for the generative syntax to
pursue. As the observational adequacy is mainly concerned with generating
sentences of a language accurately in a basic level (Matthew 1997), the other two
levels are more presented by X-bar theory, which is a system of providing the
universal structure for illustrating structures of various languages. Therefore, after
the more precise explanation of these two levels, the focus of this essay is to show
to what extent the X-bar theory has achieved the levels of descriptive and
explanatory adequacy with certain examples.
Descriptive Adequacy
Descriptive adequacy is a more advanced level than observational adequacy, which
not only correctly generates the linear sentences but also presents the spatial
structures of various languages; furthermore, in this level, a satisfactory theory
should be able to describe the 'linguistic intuition', i.e. the implied competence of
the native speakers (Hanna 2004). At this point, X-bar theory has quite successfully
achieved this level and is able to explicate how the tacit linguistic knowledge is
used by speakers; it can be briefly proved by two of its advantages.
Firstly, it can clarify the structural ambiguity with different Surface-structure
representations. For example, it is quite useful for clarification when the position of
modification in a sentence is not clear; there is more than one possibility of the
surface-structure although the sentences look quite similar in a linear structure as
shown below.
In the example (1), it is difficult to illustrate two possibilities from a planar
sentence; however, there are still two different S-structures (1a) and (1b) which can
account for the sentence reasonably. To be more precise, depending on the
component which is modified by the complement with a bone, one situation is that
Bob hit the dog and the dog was carrying a bone while the other one is that Bob
used a bone to hit the dog. Thus, the X-bar theory in this level has achieved one of
its responsibilities.
However, it is not perfect to clarify all the ambiguity. For example, it is still
difficult to draw different trees for scope ambiguity like (2)
(2)
There is only one tree which can be drawn from this example although it is still
ambiguous. One interpretation is all the boys like the same girl; the other one is
every boy likes different girl. Thus, to this extent, X-bar theory may not be very
adequate.
Secondly, X-bar theory can indicate the deep structure of sentences in a language;
in another word, it can explain why sentences with different S-structures may have
the same meaning. For example, the patients in the active and passive sentences
have different position either in the subject or the object; nevertheless, they all
indicate the same meaning. Therefore, X-bar theory is able to present the deep
structure showing the relation between active and passive sentence patterns such as
the following example (3).
As can be seen from the deep structure marked by the index t i, although the two
structures are quite different, one essential position is unchangeable - the
patient John. In (3a), the patient becomes a subject which appears at the beginning
of the sentence, however, it still leaves the trace t i in the position of the object of
the action bite as well as the position of John in (3b). It means that John is always
the patient if it was true that a bee bit John.
Therefore, the X-bar has shown rather convincing analysis corresponding to the
level of descriptive adequacy by establishing a spatial structure and using indexes
for a reversion of the primary meaning. So the theory has much freedom in the
analysis and deconstruction of various sentences including English and other
languages. However, descriptive adequacy only requires an explanation based on
the direct description and the 'external ground' (Hanna 2004); however, the final
aim of a successful generative syntax should sufficiently achieve the highest level -
explanatory adequacy.
Explanatory Adequacy
As the final level, explanatory adequacy firstly requires the achievement of the
former two levels - observational adequacy and descriptive adequacy and then
provides the intrinsic explanation which is concerned with the Universal Grammar
in all the languages, i.e. the syntax theory should fit in the universal structure which
exists in various languages. Furthermore, the theory should touch the depth of
explaining how the speaker can obtain the knowledge about the language (Matthew
1997). In other words, compared to descriptive adequacy, explanatory adequacy
returns to the 'primary linguistic data' (PLD) (Chomsky 2002) and tries to explain
how children can relate PLD with their linguistic competence and establish their
language system in one language other than other languages, since there are so
many languages in the world with different grammatical and lexical principles.
Likewise, X-bar theory relatively indicates explanatory adequacy to certain extent.
Primarily, it is able to provide a universal structure which well applies to various
language structures. For example, the notations 'XP', 'X'' and 'X' (e.g. NP, N' and N;
VP, V' and V, etc.) establish a relationship between different syntactic categories
and become the general principles in all the categories; moreover, the feasible
framework of X-bar theory can also establish a relationship between different
languages like the example below:
Clearly, the structures in English and Chinese (Mandarin) are different from each
other; there are I-to-C movement and A' movement in English which are not
necessary in Mandarin; however, X-bar theory with the characteristics of cross-
linguistics is still able to present both structures and it also indicate the existence of
the Universal Grammar.
As for the explanation of the language acquisition of children, the concepts of 'cue'
and parameter are proposed (Boysson-Bardies 1999) to interpret the choices from a
large number of parameters in different languages. To apply to X-bar theory with
the example (4), the Chinese children may received the overt 'cue' of no I-to-C or
A' movement in their speaking circumstance within an innate background of the
Universal Grammar; whereas, the English children choose the different parameters
from the Universal Grammar with the distinct cue provided. It may account for the
language acquisition by children in an initial stage (Huybregts 2004), although it is
not completely clear in this level.
Conclusion
To sum up, this essay basically talked about the correspondence of X-bar theory to
the two criteria of the generative syntax - descriptive adequacy and explanatory
adequacy. With the above examples and explanations, it probably can be seen that
X-bar theory quite successfully achieved the former level as it can explain both
deep and surface structures sufficiently and clarifies the ambiguity in sentences
clearly. Furthermore, in the final level, it is still able to establish a universal
structure which may interpret different situation in languages and to explain the
deep reason of language acquisition of children to certain extent. Therefore, X-bar
theory is a relatively successful theory especially in descriptive adequacy although
it may fail to illustrate the scope ambiguity; furthermore, X-bar theory has
explained a little in the final level but there is still a distance from the ideal
purpose. In a word, X-bar theory basically achieved those two criteria proposed by
Chomsky with some flaws; however, it is still a quite advanced theory and
developing.
References

 Boysson-Bardies, B. de. 1999. How Language Comes to Children.

Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
 Chomsky, N. 2002. On Nature and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Edited by A. Belletti and L. Rizzi. [online] Available from: a
href="http://assets.cambridge.org/052181/5487/sample/0521815487ws.pdf">htt
p://assets.cambridge.org/052181/5487/sample/0521815487ws.pdf
 Cook, V. and M. Newson. 1996. Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An
introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
 Hanna, P. 2004. Back to Adequacy. [online] Available from:
 a
href="http://www.hum.utah.edu/~phanna/classes/ling3160/webnotes/chomskyo
nadequacy/node3.html">http://www.hum.utah.edu/~phanna/classes/ling3160/w
ebnotes/chomskyonadequacy/node3.html
 Huybregts, R. 2004. Principle & Parameters in Syntax: Language in a
psychological setting. [online] Available from a
href="http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/medewerkers/marc.van.oostendorp/geschie
denis/gtrh2.pdf">http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/medewerkers/marc.van.oostend
orp/geschiedenis/gtrh2.pdf
 Mathews, P. H. 1997. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

CRITERIA OF ADEQUACY FOR A GRAMMAR

There is an old saying, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for everything”. How do you decide
whether the set of rules that you’ve proposed for some set of sentences in a language is the right
one, or the best one, given that there are an infinite set of possible grammatical descriptions? In
formulating a grammar, or a set of rules that we assume models the language user’s knowledge of
language, we must first decide how we are going to evaluate the grammar that we propose.
Chomsky (1965) proposed three criteria of adequacy for a grammatical
description, which he dubbed: (i) observational adequacy; (ii)
descriptive adequacy; (iii) Explanatory adequacy. I will now discuss these
concepts. A. Observational Adequacy Linguists who formulate grammars of
languages that are not their own, and who work with native speakers of those
languages, are called field linguists. They typically start by finding out the
words for various concepts in the target language, and eventually ask the
speaker if (s)he can put the words together in this way or that way to form an
acceptable sentence in the language. After collecting the responses for some
time period (say, an hour-and-a half, for example), the field linguist leaves and
analyzes the responses, trying to figure out the rules that generate all of the
acceptable strings and none of the unacceptable strings. A set of rules, or
grammar, that achieves this, is said to be observationally adequate. Hence,
observational adequacy can be defined as follows: Observational adequacy:
the ability of a grammar to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of
a language in a fixed body of data (called a corpus). B. Descriptive Adequacy
As we saw from the Jabberwocky example, natural languages are infinite, and
hence a grammar of a natural language must be able to generate an infinite
number of sentences. To take the example of the field linguist above, after
the field linguist has formulated a grammar that is observationally adequate,
he tests the grammar against the native speaker’s intuitions by asking the
native speaker if some further set of sentences that are not in the original
corpus are acceptable sentences in the language. If a grammar generates all
and only the set of grammatical sentences in the language, it is said to be
descriptively adequate. Descriptive adequacy: the ability of a grammar to
generate all and only the grammatical sentences of the language. However,
we are not only interested in generating the right set of strings. Remember,
what we are really interested in modeling is the full set of abilities that native
speakers have, and one of those abilities is the ability to recognize the
meanings of sentences. For example, we know that The cat is on the mat does
not mean that John saw Mary. We therefore have to build in this ability as
well. A traditional way of describing a grammar is as an infinite set of pairings
of form and meaning. Let us therefore revise our definitions of observational
and descriptive adequacy as follows: Observational adequacy (Final Version):
the ability of a grammar to generate all and only the grammatical sentences
of a language in a fixed body of data (called a corpus), and to pair each
grammatical sentence with its meaning. Descriptive adequacy(Final Version):
the ability of a grammar to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of
the language, and to pair each grammatical sentence with its meaning. C.
Explanatory Adequacy: The third requirement is not, strictly speaking, a
requirement on grammars, but, rather, a requirement on the account that
underlies the construction of a particular grammar, i.e. an account of what a
possible grammar of a human language can be. This needs a little more
explanation. When we formulate a grammar, we must have, at some level, a
set of assumptions as to what a possible grammar can be- there are certain
possibilities for rules that don’t even occur to us. We therefore have, if only
implicitly, a theory of possible grammars. It is commonplace to view the task of
a linguist, in discovering a descriptively adequate grammar of a language, as
being identical to the task of a child, who is trying to discover the descriptively
adequate (adult) grammar of the language of her or his community. Because
linguists are trying to model the abilities of native speakers, one of their
goals is to try to formulate this theory, called a theory of universal grammar,
as well as the grammars of particular languages. We would therefore say that
the relation of the theory of grammar to grammars of particular languages
could be described as follows: Theory of Grammar (Universal Grammar)
={G1,…., Gn} In other words, a theory of grammar is a specification of the
possible grammars, which we’re calling G1 through Gn (instead of French,
English, Ewe, Chinese, etc.). Now, a theory of grammar that is the correct
account of what a possible grammar of a natural language should predict only
the set of actual possible grammars, and should not predict that some
grammar is the grammar of a natural language that is never realized in fact. In
other words, a theory of grammar should not over-predict. There is a
distinction between “actual grammars of human languages” and “possible
grammars of human languages”. As Chomsky & Halle put it in the preface to
their classic work in phonology, The Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle
(1968)), “If a nuclear explosion were to wipe out everybody on earth except
for the inhabitants of Tanzania, we would not want to say that pitch is a
linguistic universal.” (the assumption being that the language spoken in
Tanzania is what is known as a pitch-accent, or tone, language). External
circumstances would cause only one language to spoken in the world, the
speakers of all of the others having been wiped out by nuclear extinction, but
the speakers of that language would have the capacity to learn other
languages that are not pitch-accent languages. Remember, in constructing an
account of what a possible human language is, we are modeling actual human
capacities, and the assumption is that humans will only consider a certain set
of grammars as possible grammars as human languages. Explanatory
adequacy, therefore, can be defined as a requirement that a theory of
grammar only allow for the possible grammars of human languages.
Explanatory Adequacy= the ability of a theory of grammar to predict only the
set of possible grammars of human languages.

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Levels of Linguistic Adequacy

Descriptive Grammar

The emergence of descriptive grammar studies goes back to early 1930s. Instead
of studying agrammar of a language in terms of prescriptive analysis, linguists
revolutionized the study of grammar in descriptive aspects. A grammar ‘is a
model of the grammatical competence of the native speaker of a language. It
comprises a finite system of rules which generate the infinite setof well-formed
sentence-structures in the language.’ (Radford, 27) Therefore, in this line
of research, a linguist is not to evaluate a particular grammar in term of wrong,
right, weak or strong; on the contrary, strive to formulate a finite system of rules
that describe syntactic,semantic and phonological relations.
Levels of Adequacy
According to Chomsky in Radford, there are certain criteria that account for the
levels of adequacy in grammars. Observationally adequacy refers to a grammar
which produces correct explanations for the raw linguistic data and provides the
rules and principles to distinguish the series of words that are sentences of a
language from those that are not sentences of the language involved. In other
words, if a grammar specifies which sentences are well-formed with regard
tosyntactical, semantic, morphological and phonological rules, it has the level of
observational adequacy. (Radford, 28)The second level of adequacy is
descriptive adequacy which refers to producing correct explanations for the
linguistic competence of the speakers and listeners of a certain language.
Inother words, it is ‘’a theory that accounts for both corpora and native speaker j
udgments aboutwell-
formedness is called a descriptively adequate grammar.’’ (Carnie, 24) Encompas
sing theaspects of the observational adequacy, a descriptive adequate grammar
also provides us with asystematic account of ‘the native speaker’s intuitions’ as
to i.e. why a certain sentence is ill-formed or unacceptable.
The highest level is the explanatory adequacy, in which case the grammar has a
particular theoryof adequate language on which three rules have been imposed.
The first rule is universality,which means it applies to all natural languages. The
second rule is that the theory should bemaximally constrained; in other words,
the theory is not to be appropriate for the description of any other
communication system; only then the theory would lead to characterization
of ‘theessence of human language’. (Radford, 29) The third condition is the
psychological reality, thataccounts for how ‘the mind produces and processes
language.’ (Radford, 29)Andrew Carnie (2006) provides examples to the
levels of adequacy with reference to works of different linguists and expects the
readers to find out which examples meet the correct level. Thefirst one is:‘Juan
Martínez has been working with speakers of Chicano English in the barrios of
LosAngeles. He has been looking both at corpora (rap music, recorded
snatches of speech)and working with adult native speakers.’(Carnie, 2006) I
tend to think that the adequacy inMartinez’s work here is descriptive adequacy
since it studies the syntactic, semantic,morphological and phonological well-
formed sentences (therefore opting out the ill-formedones.) However, it also
deals with the speaker and listeners’ intuitions about the structure of thelanguage
(i.e. inspecting different versions of communicative structures, speeches
etc.)‘Fredrike Schwarz has been looking at the structure of sentences in
eleventh-century Welsh poems. She has been working at the national archives of
Wales in Cardiff.’ (Carnie, 2006) Myopinion is this study belongs to the
observational adequate grammar. Hence, it accounts for thestructures of
semantic, syntactic principles of a language spoken or written at a given time (in
thiscase, eleventh century).The last instance is: ‘Boris Dimitrov has been
working with adults and corpora on theformation of questions in Rhodopian
Bulgarian. He is also conducting a longitudinal study of some two-year-old
children learning the language to test his hypotheses.’’ (Carnie, 2006)
Thisinstance might seem more obvious than the previous two, since it involves
the learning language process of children. Encompassing the observational and
descriptive adequacy, the explanatory adequacy refers to a theory of language
that must, ‘explain why grammars contain certain types of technical devices and
not others (universality); explain what exactly are the defining characteristics of
human languages that differentiate them from other communication systems

(maximally constrained); explain how it is that human beings come to acquire

their native languages (psychological reality). (Radford, 30) Therefore the last
instance is explanatory adequacy.
References
Radford, Andrew (1988) Transformational Grammar. A First Course.
Cambridge, CUP.Carnie, Andrew (1996)Syntax: A Generative Introduction
(2nd edition) (Introducing LinguisticsSeries),Wiley-Blackwell in
 Levels of Adequacy in Generative Grammar

REVISED July 15/2013

First off, thanks to Ben, David and Andrew for correcting me. The discussion is not
in Aspects as stated below (or at least in the way I recalled: but see chapter 4 for some
discussion), but in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. So don't fret if in your (re)reading
of Aspects chapter 1 you miss it. Ben also asked that I expand the discussion a bit of the
relation between observational and descriptive adequacy. I have added something at the end
to expatiate a bit on the distinction. Thanks to Avery for adding to this. I encourage people to
look at the comment section for further enlightenment.

****

In the last several posts I have defended the position that one of the benchmarks for theory
evaluation ought to be how well a given proposal helps answer a central why question.
Plato’s Problem lays out the central puzzle in GB, and it is worth reviewing how Generative
Grammar (GG) incorporated concern for both low-level observational details and higher level
problems in evaluating ongoing proposals. The locus classicus is, of course,
in Aspects chapter 1.

BTW, before going on, I found to my dismay that students no longer read Chapter 1 as a
matter of course. In teaching intro to Minimalism here at the LSA summer institute, I ran a
random poll of the class and discovered that much less than a third had ever read it. Given
that this is one of the seminal documents in GG and lays out many of the basic foundational
premises as clearly as has ever been done, this is just nuts. So, if you dear reader have
never read it (in fact multiple times (aim for about 50)), then stop reading this silly blog now
and go and read it!!

Ok, to resume: In Aspects Chomsky distinguished three levels of empirical adequacy:

(i) Observational Adequacy

(ii) Descriptive Adequacy
(iii) Explanatory Adequacy

In the context of Plato’s Problem (PP) they were interpreted as follows: a proposed grammar
G of a language L (i.e. GL) is observationally adequate if it covers the relevant data points
(generally consisting of acceptability(-under-an-interpretation) judgments). A GL is
descriptively adequate if it accurately describes the internal (steady) state of a native speaker
of L. Last, a theory of UG is explanatorily adequate when it, in combination with the
PLDL (the primary linguistic data of L that the child uses to attain GL) can derive the
descriptively adequate GL. We can then extend the notion of explanatory adequacy to GL as
well: the proposal is explanatory just in case it covers the relevant observational data and is
derivable from UG given PLDL.

Note the important distinction between observational and descriptive adequacy. The
evaluation of GLs faces in two directions: towards the sentential observations/judgments that
derive from descriptively adequate Gs and towards FL from which these Gs descend. Thus,
descriptive adequacy commits hostages to the structure of FL for a proposal fails to be such
if it fails to grow out of FL when appropriately watered with PLDL. In other words, covering the
sample data was neverconsidered in itself sufficient for attaining descriptive adequacy. This
required attention to all three levels, i.e. to cover the data with the “correct” grammar derived
from an adequate UG.
 I always thought that one could add a forth level to this, doing for UG what (ii) does for
particular Gs:

(iv) Explanatory Descriptive Adequacy

This last would select out the actual UG we have, not merely one capable of deriving GL from
PLDL + some UG. However, given how hard the problem of finding any explanatorily
adequate UG, it makes sense to be satisfied with theories of UG that can manage (iii) (to my
knowledge, none has yet been produced, though there are sketches). I return to (iv) below.

Not surprisingly, within the context of PP all three levels play an important justificatory role for
particular analyses. Thus, an account that fails to “cover” the relevant judgment data, is less
well regarded than one that does. So too, if a particular story covers these data but does not
describe our actual G, is justly discarded. One relevant question is how one might know that
an account that is observationally adequate is nonetheless possibly false. One way is that it
fails to comport with what we take to be features of UG (others include being “too complex
and inelegant,” “missing a generalization,” etc.[1]). So, for example, we might find a theory
that covers the relevant language particular data but invokes operations that are UG
inconsistent, something we discerned in studying the Gs of other Ls. As we assume that any
given Gs must be structurally consistent with other Gs (e.g. the G of English can constrain
what we take to be a possible rule in the G of Japanese), we can argue that Gs that are
observationally adequate (i.e. cover the relevant facts within any given L) are nonetheless
inadequate as they invoke operations or principles inconsistent with what we find in other
Gs. As any child, we assume, can learn any language, the G that it actually (accidentally)
acquires should look similar to the other Gs that it could have acquired. In this way, the larger
explanatory goal, discovering the structure of FL/UG, impacts our evaluation of candidate
proposals.

A similar three level scheme with a regulative role for Darwin’s Problem can be developed for
the Minimalist Program (MP). Recall that the aim is to understand why we have the FL/UG
we have and not some other. So a MP proposal will be observationally adequate if it
replicates the right “laws of grammar.” (e.g. the principles within GB are “roughly”
observationally adequate). An MP proposal will be descriptively adequate if they describe the
actual FL/UG that is our biological endowment and a theory will be explanatorily adequate if
combined with a plausible evolutionary scenario it can account for how the descriptively
adequate FL/UG arose in the species. I have elsewhere discussed various intermediate
projects that could push this explanatory project forward. Here I just want to note that as in
the discussion above, it is useful to have the higher- level explanatory goal regulate the
evaluation of specific proposals.

I hope it goes without saying that Plato’s and Darwin’s Problems are pursued in tandem and
not seriatim. Both are looking for the correct FL/UG. It’s a factor in evaluating descriptive
adequacy in the context of Plato’s Problem and it is the object of inquiry in pursuing
Darwin’s. Observational concerns affect explanatory ambitions and, hopefully, the reverse is
true as well. Thus, the projects are not separate, but go hand in hand. Nonetheless, it is
interesting to note that as Chomsky likes to say “from the earliest days of Generative
Grammar” between observational work and higher level questions that this work was in the
service of pursuing. Thus, the minimalist emphasis on explanation and the insistence that it
play a central role in theory evaluation is hardly a GG novelty. It was always such, and now it
is such in spades.

Addendum:

Here's how I have understand the distinction between observational and descriptive
adequacy. Chomsky draws an implicit distinction between grammars that cover the relevant
data of interest and grammars that accurately describe a speaker's mental grammatical
state. The former grammars are observationally adequate, the latter descriptively
adequate. Now, as Avery nicely observes, there are even levels of observational adequacy:
does it cover the right range of acceptability judgments, get the right interpretations (theta
roles, scope, binding), does it "capture" the apparent generalizations. Grammars that do so
are observationally adequate. Note, this is not a trivial hurdle. A good observationally
adequate grammar is nothing to sneeze at. Even more so, when as I suggested, that we
extend the same courtesy to UGs in the context of MP. However, being observationally
adequate is one virtue, being descriptively adequate another. A Grammar of L attains
descriptive adequacy if it correctly describes the mental state achieved by a competent
speaker of L (actually an ideal speaker-hearer, but let's put that aside). What makes for the
gap between observational and descriptive adequacy? Well, being acquirable as a product
of FL. Descriptively adequate grammars are those that FL/UG generate on the basis of PLD
of L. So, among the possible observationally adequate grammars, the descriptively
adequate ones are those that are products of FL. Thus descriptive adequacy adverts to the
concerns of Plato's Problem, a sketch of the latter bearing (at least implicitly) on the step
from observational to descriptive adequacy.

If this is correct, then from the earliest days of GG, Chomsky has insisted placing the
evaluation of grammatical proposals in the widest possible context, with Plato's Problem (a
later dubbing) playing a central role. This role became more prominent, in my view, as we
made more progress. However, it was there from the start. Minimalism has enriched this
evaluative measure yet again by highlighting various other factors (e.g. Ockham, Darwin's
Problem, etc.) and including them as relevant measures of theory evaluation. Of course,
there is no algorithm for weighing these factors and trading them off against one another
when they conflict. But that's par for the course. That's a domain for scientific judgment, not
mindless rules of method. However, it is easy to ignore the more abstract concerns on favor
of covering he more easily available data points. The discussion of levels of adequacy is a
useful conceptual reminder that the fish we are trying to fry is a very big one and that there
are many things that go into frying it.

[1] For a classic argument like this see Chomsky’s discussion of the inadequacy of Phrase
Structure Grammars as one’s that clearly are too cumbersome, redundant and miss obvious
generalizations. In effect, they fail to be compact enough.