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Levels of adequacy: observational, descriptive, explanatory.
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.
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- Published
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ElsevierExternal DOI
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Vol. 7: 49 - 51Book title
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition)Place of publication
OxfordISBN
9780080442990Department affiliated with
- English Publications
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- No
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- No
Editors
Keith BrownLegacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
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