Introduction

Abstract

The introductory chapter presents the current status of the debate concerning linguistic intuitions, starting with their early use in the Chomskyan tradition. It introduces the two main questions discussed in the volume: the justification question, which asks for a theoretical rationale for using linguistic intuitions as evidence in the study of language; and the methodology question, which asks whether formal methods of gathering intuitions are epistemically and methodologically superior to informal ones. The introduction also provides summaries of the remaining chapters and explains how they contribute to the debates raised by these two questions.

Aesthetics in Styles and Variation: A Fresh Flavor

“…These perspectives have cast a long shadow on modern linguistics; "linguistic intuition" functions much as the judgment of taste. 4 Methods based on intuitions in Chomskyan linguistics grew out of the use of intuitions in philosophy, and in both fields the nature of intuitions has been questioned (Wasow & Arnold 2005, Devitt 2006, Brøcker et al 2020. For linguistics, where Chomsky (1965) argued that an ideal(ized) speaker-hearer was the proper object of study, a methodology was developed which counted the internal judgments of native speakers as data.…”