I n order to appreciate properly what we are doing in this book it
is necessary to realize that our approach to linguistic theorizing
differs from the prevailing views. Our approach can be described by
indicating what distinguishes it from the methodological ideas
current in theoretical linguistics, which I consider seriously
misguided. Linguists typically construe their task in these days as
that of making exceptionless generalizations from particular
examples. This explanatory strategy is wrong in several different
ways. It presupposes that we can have "intuitions" about particular
examples, usually examples invented by the linguist himself or
herself, reliable and sharp enough to serve as a basis of sharp
generalizations. It also presupposes that we cannot have equally
reliable direct access to general linguistic regularities. Both
assumptions appear to me extremely dubious, and the first of them
has in effect been challenged by linguists like Dwight Bol inger.
There is also some evidence that the degree of unanimity among
linguists is fairly low when it comes to less clear cases, even in
connection with such relatively simple questions as grammaticality
(acceptability). For this reason we have tried to rely more on
quotations from contemporary fiction, newspapers and magazines than
on linguists' and philosophers' ad hoc examples. I also find it
strange that some of the same linguists as believe that we all
possess innate ideas about general characteristics of humanly
possible grammars assume that we can have access to them only via
their particular consequences.
General
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