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Levels of adequacy: observational, descriptive, explanatory.

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posted on 2023-06-08, 06:31 authored by Melanie GreenMelanie Green
Levels of adequacy are design criteria that have played a central role in the transformational generative grammar model since its inception in the 1950s. According to Chomsky, an adequate model of language not only must state what combinations of expressions do and do not give rise to grammatical sentences (observational adequacy) but must also account for the knowledge system underlying the intuitions of the native speaker (descriptive adequacy) and explain how such knowledge is acquired (explanatory adequacy). The tension between the goals of descriptive and explanatory adequacy has led to important developments in the Chomskyan model over the past half century.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Elsevier

Page range

Vol. 7: 49 - 51

Book title

Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition)

Place of publication

Oxford

ISBN

9780080442990

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • No

Editors

Keith Brown

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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