[log in to unmask] wrote:

> In fact, I was trying (not too clearly?) to say that semantics
> is such a strong controlling factor in the grammar of sentences, that we
> can't afford to set it aside by believing we can learn something about
> grammar from semantically unacceptable sentences.

Essentially, the issue is to decide how autonomous syntax is from
semantics. This has been an important issue in linguistics for awhile.
In the first chapter of Newmeyer's Language Form and Language Function
there is an imagined debate between a formalist and a functionalist
which captures the issues involved.

I would suggest that the "intelligibility" of "colorless green ideas
sleep furiously" or Jabberwocky suggests that something about knowledge
of language can be learned from "semantically unacceptable sentence."
Moreover, the idea that we can even talk about "semantically
unacceptability" suggests there are aspects of semantics separate from
syntax.

I do not want to deny that there isn't an important component of
semantics in our knowledge of language.  I wonder, especially for native
speakers, how much of the problem they have with controlling academic
English is due to problems of semantics and not problems with formal
representations of academic English.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University