[This one is primarily theory-wrangling, with little direct application
to pedagogy]
 
Ed,
 
I probably wasn't very clear in that initial statement. What I meant was
that quite a number of theories would hold that a given non-ambiguous
sentence has exactly one correct structure; syntactic argumentation in
those theories thus takes the form of a discussion about which possible
structure is the correct one. For example, given a basic transitive
sentence skeleton like [S V O], there are at least two possible
groupings:
 
1.                   (S V) O
2.                   S (V O)
 
In what I'll call "monostructural" theories, practitioners take as a
given that they have to pick one of those two (this is in part driven by
some initial assumptions in how to "count" simplicity in a theory). Each
has benefits - the first one provides a very convenient domain for
talking about subject/verb agreement, while the second accounts much
better for the observation that knowing the kind of verb you have lets
you predict the kind of object, or whether there will be an object or
not, better than it lets you make predications about the subject (and
besides, it fits the traditional subject/predicate distinction). In all
the monostructural approaches I'm aware of, practitioners pick the
second; the price, of course, is having to go to some extra lengths to
deal with subject/verb agreement.
 
"Multistructural" theories would allow for *both* 1 and 2 to be
potentially "correct" simultaneously, so the question of "which one is
correct?" isn't really relevant. This kind of approach can (but doesn't
have to be) motivated by a different way of counting simplicity.  
 
Both mono- and multistructural theories can be deployed in "God's Truth"
and "Hocus Pocus" forms - in the first case, the practitioner claims
that the underlying reality of human language is such that sentences
really do/don't have single structural descriptions (whether we know
what they are or not); in the second, the practitioner claims that there
is no way of knowing for sure, but that assuming that they do/don't have
single structural descriptions is useful for practical reasons. A
position of "agnostic humility" (which I happen to regard as quite
healthy!) is possible in all four combinations of the two distinctions.
 
Bill Spruiell
 
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University

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