The Behavior Analyst 1982, 5, 9-19 No. 1 (Spring) Can Linguistics Contribute to the Study of Verbal Behavior? Pere Julia Harvard University

A number of publications during the last decade reveal a growing interest in linguistics and psycholinguistics among some radical behaviorists, who have proposed a direct rapprochement between a formal analysis of language and a functional account. It is argued that whereas function has to do with the circumstances under which verbal behavior is emitted, structure has to do with its "internal organization," the ways in which sentences or parts thereof are presumably interrelated. These are said to be different dimensions of verbal behavior; together they should lead toward a coherent psychology of language. But psychologists bent on in- corporating techniques from linguistics should be aware of its underlying assumptions, lest their work be deflected in essentially unproductive directions. The line between rapprochement and subservience is thin in- deed, as the extant literature shows. This paper traces the development of mainstream contemporary psycho- linguistics and examines the linguist's assumptions about the subject matter in the light of a behavioral analysis. The possibility of an effective reconciliation seems to be a long way off.

A recent article in The Behavior underlies the learning of such terms as Analyst concludes that a terminology toy, clothes, furniture and the creative use based on the notion of generalization of language in general, i.e., class has advantages over other ter- The capacity . . . to understand and to produce minologies. Concepts, categories, and the sentences we have never heard before like, are to be rejected because they We further read, bring the psychologist to ignore the dependence . . . on the nature of the original entities. This may ... this capacity appears to stanid behind the psycho- be the reason why some of the treatments of so- logical reality of syntactic categories, such as the called cognitive psychologists are methodologically category of noun or of verb phrases . . such unsatisfactory. (Stemmer, 1980) syntactic categories must be available for children in order to enable them to learn a generative gram- mar. This should hardly come as a sur- (p. 47) prise to the behavior analyst. Stemmer So, when it comes to language we still draws a distinction between "normal" need categories after all! The explicit generalization classes, which are strongly reference given is Chomsky (1965). Is not determined by genetic factors, and "un- language a form of behavior? common" generalization classes, which Statements of the sort are merely symp- are determined, to a great extent, by ex- tomatic of a broader trend. It was not so perience. (Why so bold a tone for the long ago that the Journal of the Ex- former and so guarded a style for the lat- perimental Analysis of Behavior pub- ter?) The author brings his discussion to a lished the following sentences: "It may be close with a brief reference to language. more accurate to say that some internal Rather surprisingly, he does so in terms of trace or representation may serve as a the capacity to acquire uncommon cue" and "S(ubjects) learned a represen- generalization classes, which play a fun- tation of the sentence" (cf., Branch & damental role in human life, especially in Malagodi, 1980, for more). language acquisition. This capacity, It is perhaps not too far-fetched to sug- which in his view has been neglected, gest that this "sudden" fascination with internal cues, mental representations, capacities, and so on, has been greatly A shorter version of this paper was presented at the facilitated, at least among radical be- annual meeting of the Association for Behavior haviorists, by early attempts to translate a Analysis, Milwaukee, WI, May 1981. Requests for certain brand of of reprints should be addressed to the author: Depart- formal analysis ment of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard natural language into behavioral terms University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. (Catania, 1972). After discussing the

9 10 PERE JULIA

status of such formal concerns as linguistics to F. de Saussure (1916), who language universals, transformations, conceived language as "a system where syntax and semantics, hierarchical everything is related to everything else and organization, linguistic competence, etc., which recognizes no rule but its own." Catania summarized his position as Subsequent developments have been follows, predicated on this view of the subject mat- The controversy between cognitive and behavioral ter to this very day. accounts is in part simply a matter of speaking of the Structuralism is brought about by the same things in different ways. But sometimes also, need to go beyond individual speech ut- as when we fail to distinguish between structural and functional problems, controversies arise because we terances and zero in on features shared by mistakenly speak of different things as if they were the members of a speech community. the same. (p. 15) Thus viewed, language becomes an abstraction; but the study of language as Only a year later Catania (1973) writes. an abstraction is hardly an improvement It is not unfashionable these days to be a mentalist; on previous practices and forces similar only dualism is reprehensible. . In fact, the possibility of an internally consistent mentalism is conceptual and methodological twists. implicit in the notion that a behavioral translation of When the description of the so-called mental or cognitive vocabularies is feasible. (p. 441) "system" is brought to bear on the actual . . . psychogenesis must deal with the development activity of speakers and listeners, one in- of the organism's behavioral or mental capacities; evitably brings in ostensibly undemon- this is what the psychology of learning is supposed to strated notions. Thus, de Saussure's la be about. (p. 441) langue, the system, is only part of the Conciliatory repertoires must have been over-all verbal phenomenon, le langage, at an unusually high strength at the time. which is then referred to a faculte de Segal (1975) is perfectly aware that langage. This faculty of language makes possible la parole, the speech of in- . . .the direction of research on verbal behavior, dividuals which constitutes, so to speak, the different kinds of data that behaviorists and psycholinguists collect, the different methods of the data from which la langue or abstract collecting them, and the different conclusions drawn system is abstracted. from them (p. 158) Under the leadership of L. Bloomfield, structural linguistics in America eschewed differ; even so she writes: the mentalistic outlook and emphasized ... the languages, the linguistic and the behavioral, the actual speeh utterances. For this are roughly equivalent, that is they display com- reason, as well as for his stand on the parable respect for the phenomenal complexities "problem" of meaning, much has been of grammatical processes. (p. 154) made in recent years of Bloomfield's It is perhaps only natural that behaviorism. It is true that in his attempt psychologists concerned with verbal to set up an autonomous science of behavior turn to the linguist for help. But language Bloomfield insisted on dispens- incorporation of techniques and pro- ing with what he called "random theoriz- cedures from another field is always a ing," "teleological explanations," and delicate matter-one that should not be "premature psychologizing." But does taken lightly. So it is probably reasonable that alone make him a behaviorist? to ask whether linguistics can contribute While he often appealed to terms to the study of verbal behavior. To like "stimulus," "situation," and answer this question we must look closely "response," the case has been overstated. at the nature of the linguist's data, what What Bloomfield had to say about mean- he does with them and, above all, what ing was often inconsistent and ultimately are his underlying assumptions about the proved less than constructive: in one case, subject matter. meaning is the situation in which the speaker utters a linguistic form and the THE STRUCTURAL OUTLOOK response it evokes in the listener; in Origins another, meaning would embrace rela- It is customary to trace structuralism in tions between speech forms, on the one LINGUISTICS 11

hand, and objects, events, and the per- teraction. In the words of Harris and sons participating in the speech event, on Voegelin (1953), the other. Rather surprisingly, he also in- As long as our informant repeats what he said, or cludes relations between speech forms and even what we have said, or as long as he repeats the other speech forms. Elsewhere Bloom- morphemes we seek in a repetition of the environ- field (1927) takes Jespersen (1924) to task ment in which we are interested, we have an ut- terance of the language, that is, a combination of for considering forms apart from mean- and of the ing and "the actual necessities and conve- phonemes morphemes language. (p. 66) niences of communication," which do not This is "one of the indications that we include the "thoughts and feelings of are dealing with authentic linguistic speakers. " In Bloomfield's view, these material." "Environment" here means, are a matter ofparole; since prediction of of course, linguistic environment, not en- what somebody will say and how he will vironment in the behavioral sense. Harris say it is not possible (as he put it), and Voegelin's classic paper is a plea to go linguistics must concentrate on langue, beyond the merely "morphological" stage of data gathering and to elicit . . . those features . . . which are common to all speakers of a community-the phonemes, gram- materials that will reveal syntactic proper- matical categories, lexicon, and so on. These are ties as well, including intersentence rela- abstractions, for they are only (recurrent) partial tions. As to the nature of the task itself, features of speech utterances . . . They form a rigid they go on to say, system-so rigid that without adequate physiological information and psychology in a state Eliciting is therefore a method of selecting ut- of chaos, we are nevertheless able to subject it to terances out of the great body of utterances which an scientific treatment. (p. 144) informant may say in the course of speaking his language. . . the linguist is not studying the fre- By 1943 Bloomfield seems to have quency of occurrence of elements or combinations, reduced meaning to the traditional notion but only the fact that they occur. (p. 74) of reference and though still maintaining It goes without saying that the data thus that both form and meaning must be gathered were narrowly determined by the taken into account in any linguistic eliciting setting itself. As a result, deci- description, he insists that "in all study of sions over segmentation and classification language we must start from forms and of those recurrent partials that Bloom- not from meanings" (emphasis added). field had talked about became difficult Though clearly insightful at times, his and often artibrary. Problems pro- views on meaning were certainly outside liferated from the comparison of forms the pale of a narrow S-R psychology, to with forms (supplemented with an which he sometimes explicitly appealed. unavoidable measure of implicit mean- His ultimate retreat to this kind of for- ing); so did the number of classes and malism was probably inevitable; it was subclasses of morphemes set up to ac- also fraught with difficulties, as count for them. To cite but one example, subsequent workers found out.1 Hockett (1954) reports five different solu- Taxonomic Period tions, much discussed in the literature of In the 1940's and 1950's linguists em- the time, for the derivation of took from phasized data, generally from as large a take. This paper was also the first explicit variety of languages as possible. They did argument for the construction of models much field work, later to analyze their in linguistics and was to have enormous recorded samples of speech. But the data repercussions (not always acknowledged). gathered reflected primarily a concern By and large, descriptions of this period with form, not the doings of speakers and were little more than inventories of items listeners in the course of their everyday in- present in a corpus of data together with their contextual variants; hence the label "taxonomic" (and often, oddly enough, ' No history of American structuralism, however "taxonomic-behaviorist"!) later assigned sketchy, can ignore the enormous contribution of E. Sapir. Influential though he has been throughout, it to them. To make a long story short, a was nonetheless Bloomfield's methodology that more complete characterization of the prevailed (cf., Joos, 1957). times would include: (1) a limited yet 12 PERE JULIA

growing interest in syntax; (2) a concern vant. Chomsky went on to argue that the with "predictive power"-descriptive linguist's heuristic devices (which he devices should account for data outside termed "discovery procedures") should the corpus at hand; (3) the need for rules; be abandoned in favor of an "evaluation (4) Harris' (1952) introduction of the no- procedure." Given two descriptions of tion of transformation into linguistics, the same data, which one should we select which opened the door for the unabashed as the more adequate? This called for a mathematization of the field. metatheory which would dictate the form Linguists of this period were unques- of individual descriptions. A grammar of tionably anchored in data, narrow as a language became now a theory about these might be. It would be tempting to that language; it is the task of linguistics say that they emphasized topography to provide the necessary adequacy rather than function. But this would be criteria. This metatheory was at first con- inaccurate: with the qualified exception of ceptualized as a machine with inputs and articulatory phonetics, they did not deal outputs; in go, say, two grammars and the with the actual responses but with their data and out comes the selected traces, acoustic or, more likely, graphic grammar-the set of rules that best ac- (through transcriptive techniques-which counts for class K of the data (Quine's alone raise a host of methodological well-known formulation of "infinity") in problems). The emphasis on structure is the simplest possible way.2 the result of these self-imposed limitations The remedy proved worse than the and the belief that valid, non-arbitrary malady. The entire linguistic enterprise units of analysis will emerge, somehow, receded to the level of theoretical discus- from the comparison of forms with sion. Data are now by and large a handful forms. (Note 1) of putative examples (generally from But, of course, languages do not exist English) culled to illustrate a set of prob- apart from speakers and listeners; when a lems of dubious relevance (we will see a community disappears as such and we are number of them in the sequel). The trend left with the fossils of their verbal activity, has persisted: Chomsky (1965), a favorite we call their "language" dead. among psycholinguists and contaminated Generative Period psychologists, is based on almost literally The advent of the generative-trans- a handful of fully worked out cases. formational school of linguistics and Associated with evaluation is of course psycholinguists must be judged against the so-called "explanatory power" of this background. Unlike his predecessors, linguistic theory. There must be a way to Chomsky did speak about speakers and select one among the various sets of rules listeners (rather carefully at first); in fact, that will cover the same domain. Predict- it is probably safe to say that his over- ably, the machine with inputs and outputs whelming impact is due to this fact. In was not as aseptic as it looked. It even- any case, this is the reason why we are tually became a built-in evaluation pro- talking about linguistics in the present cedure whereby the child, faced with connection. It is no coincidence that variegated data, generates hypotheses psychologists concerned with verbal about these data and finally selects the behavior turn to generative grammar right set of rules (presumably those in- rather than to any of the other available dicated by generative-transformational methods of linguistic analysis. Chomsky's interest in speakers and 2Quine (1953) proposed a four-level characteriza- tion which goes from H (the simple finite corpus of listeners came in a round-about way. data already gathered) through I (H plus what Back in 1957 he was interested in what he might be gathered in today's field trip) on to J (I plus called "the justification of grammars": those utterances which, though never collected, linguistic descriptions should yield insight might be produced by a native speaker) to K or in- into speaking and understanding. In view finity, which includes all those "utterances" which might conceivably never be uttered but which, so to of the inherent arbitrariness of structural speak, are constructed according to the rules of the analysis, the question was far from irrele- language. LINGUISTICS 13

grammarians). The initial false step is of field of behavior has known similar situa- course the view that all that is needed for tions before (Skinner, 1961). language learning is (passive) exposure to The present state of affairs is illustrated a verbal environment-by which Chom- in a recent chapter (Smith, 1979) pre- sky et al. mean the acoustic effects of sumably written to enlighten psychol- other people's speech. These are the ogists: "A language is a rule-gov- "data", necessarily finite, on the basis of erned system. Human beings have tacit which the child, very much like a linguist, knowledge of these rules, or have will construct the grammar that will allow 'internalized' them. A grammar attempts him to go on producing and to make these rules explicit (p. 54). " understanding an indefinite number of How far experts have gone from the sentences. (This is the gist of the first in- data can be seen in the following two dented quotation above, which is stan- statements by the same writer: dard phraseology.) Linguistics should Linguistics is the formal study of language. It at- now be concerned with "competence," tempts to provide a definition of the notion 'possible the underlying mental-innate apparatus human language' . . . As language provides the most which permits such a feat. Without com- obvious and most acceptable manifestation of human thought, the interests of linguistics are sub- petence there would be no language learn- sumed under those of cognitive psychology. (p. 3) ing, nor would verbal performance be possible-we are told over and over. In point of fact, cognitive psychology, in need of direction itself, has gathered Psycholinguistics considerable strength from this latter-day The competence-performance distinc- return to mentalism and nativism in tion has determined the course of psycho- language studies. linguistics as an interdisciplinary field. A definition of grammar as a device The proposal that a formulation of lin- that generates all and only the gram- guistic competence based on a priori matical sentences of a language (and theory of linguistic structure constitutes a assigns structure to them) is an elegant prerequisite for the study of verbal per- construct. But a definition of language as formance has been taken seriously. a recursively enumerable set amounts to Perhaps this should not be too surprising. the ultimate reification of that rigid Psycholinguistics was originally conceived system of forms which knows no other as the convergence of linguistics, informa- rule but its own (to blend Bloomfield's tion measurement, and learning theory and de Saussure's definitions). Chomsky (Osgood & Sebeok, 1954). It may be that, in particular often speaks of language as a under the circumstances, some specialists "tool or instrument." A treatment of expected to find in the generative- natural language on the pattern of the for- grammarian's "explanatory claims" a mal sciences makes the strong assumption measure of much needed direction for an that natural languages can be effectively essentially heterogeneous field. As a described in formal terms. If successful, result, psycholinguists have found the rules of the resulting grammar permit themselves progressively more committed a kind of prediction of novel "ut- to the justification of the formal outlook terances." But this provides, at best, an on language (cf., Fillenbaum, 1971; indirect form of prediction of behavior Johnson-Laird, 1974; Miller, 1962, 1965). from behavior alone.3 Individual performance has been And so things stand. The details of the discredited as a source of data from the formal apparatus keep changing and one start. It has simply been ruled out by decree. The disturbing fact is how readily 3It is perhaps fitting to point out that after 25 experts have submitted to the view that years of feverish activity generative grammarians performance is inherently chaotic are nowhere near to providing anything like a reasonably complete grammar of English. Argu- ("degenerate" is the usual epithet) and ments still center around metatheory and actual that the object of study must therefore descriptions remain fragmentary and at variance recede to another level altogether. The with one another (cf., Gross, 1979). 14 PERE JULIA need not wonder why. For instance, wit- FIVE BASIC ASSUMPTIONS ness, e.g., the ongoing revision of the What is then the working conception of distinction between "deep" and "sur- language that ensues from contemporary face" structure, which was hailed as a formulations? turning point in linguistics some 15 years Natural languages are assumrred to be ago. Whereas surface structures account made up of an infinite set of grammatical for relations between elements of a sen- sentences. The emphasis being on syntax, tence on the basis of their "linear se- the sentence becomes the initial category; quencing," deep structures reveal "in- presumably we should expect to stay herent" grammatical relations not im- within its boundaries. Fixed structural mediately apparent from a surface analy- assignments are taken for granted, as well sis. Sentences like John expected mother as their immediate relevance to both to bring a present and John persuaded speaking and understanding. These are mother to bring a present share the same construed as equally a matter of linguistic surface structure (nominal + verb + rule; the rules of the grammar specify the nominal + marked infinitive + deter- sound-meaning pairs which constitute the miner + nominal). A "deeper" analysis sentences of the language.5 shows, however, an underlying differ- The psychologist tempted to adopt a ence between them, which stems from formal descriptive framework should be the relation between expected and per- aware of its underlying assumptions. suaded and what follows them: whereas Elsewhere I have argued (Juli'a 1980; persuaded is directly related only to also, JuliA, in press) that close inspection mother, expected is related to the entire of the formal outlook in general, and sequence coming after it. But the point is Chomsky's in particular, reveals five of not, or should not be, whether there are in these assumptions. Briefly, these are: the language (whatever this may mean) ut- (a) Infinity. Modern linguistics terances made up of apparently related capitalizes on the notion that we can say mprpheme sequences, but the status of and understand an indefinite number of this relation so far as the speaker is con- sequences. These (and many more) are cerned. what the grammar generates. For em- There have been good "formal" pirical significance, however, we must in- reasons all along to disregard the deep- quire into the relation between the two surface distinction. More important for sets. us, what becomes of the proposal (Segal, There is a vast difference between a 1977) to replace the autoclitic formula theoretical formulation of what could be (difficult as this may be) with the deep- in a language (as the expression goes) and surface dichotomy? More generally, what the actual behavior of speakers and becomes of the same writer's statement listeners. Presented with numberless well- that competence : performance :: struc- formed and perfectly real English utter- ture: function? ances, all the average listener can prob- To say that the structural model ap- ably say is that "they're English." But the proach in psycholinguistics has generated real issue is "intelligibility" or, more a great deal of research is of merely anec- precisely, effectiveness: the behavior of dotal interest unless someone can show the speaker is shaped by its effects on his that this research is geared toward something more than testing, at every things subsequently changed in any substantial way stage, the plausibility of the postulated despite growing disenchantment with the so-called or "psychological reality" of linguistic constructs and formal relations the cognitive processes the simultaneous realization that "larger contexts" invoked in order to turn something that (linguistic and non-linguistic) must also be taken in- could easily become a game with signs in- to account (Danks & Glucksberg, 1980). For a to something significant.4 behavioral analysis of the nature and status of such research, see JuliA (in press). 4Appropriately, e.g., Blumenthal (1970) labels the section on prototypical research on the Chomskian 5For a different perspective, see, however, Harris model "The Psychology of the Sentence." Nor have (1965) and Hiz (1967, 1970). LINGUISTICS 15

listener. Naturally, formal analysis em- Some classics: Furiously sleep ideas green phasizes formal properties-in particular colorless (ungrammatical as well as mean- the formal properties of sentences. But in ingless) vs. Colorless green ideas sleep the absence of grossly distorted furiously (which is at least grammatical). phonological features, thematic proper- Interestingly enough, such examples are ties are far more important. The units generally described as "sequences of un- revealed in a functional analysis rarely related words." The question immediate- coincide with the categories the linguist ly should be asked (but is not), What does simply takes for granted: we can question, the notion of "unrelated words" suggest? for example, that we speak in sentences at Verbal segments, whether these are words all. or not, do not occur together by chance We do say and (sometimes) understand but for sound behavioral reasons. This is things we have never heard before. But we why certain patterns "feel right," "make do many other things we have never done sense, " are easily responded to and before-where no claims of "ceaseless remembered, and so on. People often creativity" are made and no recursive misunderstand one another, but we can characterizations are proposed. The fun- hardly expect grammaticalness as discuss- damental problem lies in a view of ed by the linguist to shed any light into the language as made up of things, say, words relevant behavioral relations. that are put together to form sentences or (c) The Language-construct. We do not pulled apart in order to understand go around "generating" sentences. We them.6 talk about different things in different (b) Grammaticalness. Similar remarks ways depending on our current "in- apply to the "problem" of well-form- terests," audience, the place, the time, edness. Here too discussions are tied up etc. Certain topics we simply avoid. Peo- with the false notion that ordinary ple tell the truth (a basic notion in formal speakers and listeners, like linguists, push logic and some brands of linguistic words around. semantics), but they also distort "the We do make mistakes-a fact that has facts" through exaggeration, under- been vastly exaggerated in the process of statement or downright lying. Differ- arguing for descriptions based on an ent fields and different people have differ- idealized speaker-listener. But these ent styles. mistakes have nothing to do with the ar- A formal-theoretical account is tificial collocations of words usually powerless before the all-important ques- brought to bear on grammaticalness. tion: Why does verbal behavior occur when it does, and why does it have the 6 Witness a growing concern with the manipula- form it has on every occasion? tion of structurally defined response classes in the The fact is that nobody speaks a nat- experimental literature (cf., Lovaas & Newsom, 1976, and references cited there). Similarly, a ural language as a whole; we all speak number of widely cited studies define their problem and understand various "sublanguages." in terms of "generative sentence usage," "novel and When tallied against the facts, the gram- grammatical utterances," "the productive use of . . mar that is supposed to generate all and ." (given types of morphemes), and so on-all of only the grammatical sentences of a which suggest a reification of language as something people "use" (Clark & Sherman, 1975; Lutzker & language and most of the "subtleties" Sherman, 1974; Sailor, 1971; Schumaker & Sher- that follow from it become irrelevant con- man, 1970; Whitehurst, 1972, among others). Much structs. So does the corresponding con- of the confusion might innocently stem from the ception of language: natural languages term 'generate': linguistics borrowed the term from the formal sciences, where it simply means 'specify'; are not well-defined systems. The answer the rules which define a system specify the permissi- lies again with the relevant contingencies. ble combinations of its elements. Instead, the (d) SpeakerfListener. Linguistics has psychologist casually speaking of "generating an ambiguous view of the role of the behavior" literally means "producing" or "bringing the behavior about"; it is the controlling variables, listener. The notion that grammatical natural or arranged, that do the generating (cf. also descriptions should yield insight into the the discussion of rules below). "use" of language is usually framed in 16 PERE JULIA terms of the listener (see below); yet, as literature entitled "Procedures for the Ac- Sapon (1971) has pointed out, so far as quisition of Syntax" (Robinson, 1977); the linguist is concerned, the listener also, by various proposals to reinterpret begins to exist only when he begins to trees representing multioperant reper- talk. toires (Findley, 1962) as on a par with the The prevailing linguistic philosophy hierarchical structures of, say, phrase claims to be neutral as between speaker structure grammar. If taken literally, ac- and listener: grammatical descriptions commodations of this sort can easily turn cover the activity of both. This, however, the field into an effort to find a directly contravenes experience: the behavioral reality for what are only con- behavior of the listener qua listener can- venient notational devices. not be described in linguistic terms. Furthermore, understanding precedes AMBIGUITIES speaking in the normal "developmental The problem of ambiguity brings all process." The differences between so- these points together. By and large, called "active" and "passive" repertoires linguists deal with it on the basis of among adults have long been recognized: isolated textual examples; this is how we are all in a position to understand a They are flying planes and The shooting great deal more than we can say, and this of the hunters have become classics. But is scarcely a matter of vocabulary alone. what ambiguity can there be for the Speaking and understanding simply can- speaker (if such there be) of these "ut- not be accounted for by one and the same terances"? The treatment of ambiguity description.7 clearly reflects the linguist's position with (e) Rules. Do we then need two dif- respect to the subject matter. He is a ferent sets of rules? The view that or- listener or reader of a very special sort: he dinary speaking and understanding are responds to traces of verbal behavior and a matter of rule must of course be chal- finds ways to assign structure to them. At lenged altogether. Formal analysis best, linguists write grammars for the culminates in the formulation of rules; the listener-as the emphasis on "decomposi- immediate implication is that they play a tion" of sentences shows. role in verbal behavior which they do not Catania (1973) argues, however, for play elsewhere. But rules are to be found structure as well as function in language in the behavior of the analyst. A schedule studies. Taking his cue from Chomsky, he of reinforcement can be thought of as a discusses the example Dropping bombs rule for reinforcing behavior; it does not can be dangerous, which "has one of necessarily describe the behavior of rats.8 two structures depending on whether the Confusion along these lines is il- speaker is concerned with the people in lustrated by an article in the operant the air or those on the ground. " He recognizes that structure will not help us 7Much of the behavior of the understanding choose between its two possible inter- listener comes to resemble speaking. But even so, pretations and is aware that if spoken speaking and understanding have to be studied for rather than written, different stress pat- what they are-each in terms of its determining variables. terns will make all the difference. (We could also mention the contribution of 8As Skinner (1966) has pointed out, "Nothing kinesic behavior to the total speech which could be called following a plan or applying a episode-which is often decisive.) rule is observed when behavior is a product of the But of course we do not have one contingencies alone. To say that 'the child who learns a language has in some sense constructed the sentence but two: the fact that there are grammar for himself' is as misleading as to say that two possible "interpretations" suggests a dog which has learned to catch a ball has in some different independent variables; and when sense constructed the relevant part of the science of responses are a function of different mechanics. Rules can be abstracted from the rein- forcing contingencies in both cases, and once in ex- variables they cannot be considered "the istence they may be used as guides. The direct effect same response," no matter what their for- of the contingencies is of a different nature." mal similarity may be. To insist that LINGUISTICS 17

Dropping bombs can be dangerous is a on occasion we deliberately build am- sentence with two structures is to fall prey biguity into what we say or write. But we to unnecessary dualisms. Responses are are in no doubt as to what we mean. In uniquely determined. the face of nontrivial sources of ambigui- It will not do to say that once uttered, ty, the listener or reader has no alternative the listener may still be faced with an am- but to come under the control of the con- biguous verbal stimulus and that he must tingencies governing the behavior of the assign a "reading" to it. Such a view is speaker or writer. What is really at issue is forced by the prevailing sentence atomism highlighted by how we eventually "see the in linguistics. A response like this would point" of an epigram or a metaphor "we simply not occur alone. The rare occa- have known all along." (Note 2) sions when we must reckon that a sentence, phrase, etc. stands by itself and ENVOI is ambiguous (take, e.g., The shaping ofa It is perhaps time to go back to the behaviorist) are hardly a matter of gram- question with which we began. It is clear mar at all. It may take careful study of an that linguistics has become a highly entire paper to disambiguate its title. sophisticated discipline; but it is also ob- Verbal behavior does not take place in vious that, as formulated, most of the vacuo, as most theoreticians are too wont problems it addresses are largely irrele- to forget: speakers and listeners interact vant to a functional account. We are in nonverbal settings; moreover, segments looking for different things in different of verbal behavior are usually preceded places and with different means. and/or followed by other verbal The prevailing view that grammar is at behavior-the speaker's own or his in- the core of verbal activity overestimates terlocutor's. the importance of grammar and plays Adjacent verbal behavior often con- down the multiple causation, plasticity, stitutes an important source of disam- and variability of the units of analysis at biguation. But schemes worked out on the issue (Skinner, 1957). This plasticity and basis of extended discourse still emphasize variability may bother the formalist, who texts. In a sense they illustrate some of the seeks universally valid descriptions. But special problems of the reader who, such is the nature of the behavioral beast. unlike the listener, does not have the cur- Current interest in semantics and rent nonverbal environment to support pragmatics is at least in part a reaction to his verbal history. The relevant in- the notion that meaning is intrinsic to the tersentence relations resulting from such sentences generated by the grammar. To analyses need not apply to the spoken that extent, it can perhaps be seen as a case: e.g., some so-called "referentials" healthy trend. But the over-all outlook change status as soon as the nonverbal en- has not really changed. Although paying vironment is brought into the picture. lip service to the individual speaker (e.g., So, a multiplicity of cues usually come through appeal to his "intentions"), ex- together to offset possible sources of am- perts are still largely concerned with struc- biguity. Unlike the linguist, the ordinary ture and what is and is not "acceptable in listener does not have the luxury of the language" as a system. Its rules unlimited time to compare sentences and presumably describe what people "do" try out different structural assignments. with sentences. Discussions still hinge on As Salzinger (1975) has pointed out, he is competence: disagreements among more likely to ask simply, "What do you pragmatists often are brought to an end mean?" The reader is likely to reread the with some such acknowledgement as "I text a number of times, ask someone else, guess our intuitions differ." or expose himself to supplementary Some fundamental differences of materials. outlook should be clear: where as the This is not to say that ambiguity does linguist, in his concern with the language not obtain sometimes: we often qualify construct, deals at best with traces of our verbal behavior to prevent confusion; behavior, the behavior analyst is in- 18 PERE JULIA

terested in the behavior itself. The rest REFERENCES follows from this: the commitment to structure leads, as we have seen, to a Blumenthal, A. L., Language and psychology: special concern with the listener. But Historical aspects of psycholinguistics. N.Y.: Wiley, 1970. structure, here as elsewhere, is a matter of Bloomfield, L., Review of 0. Jespersen, The organization of final products; and we philosophy ofgrammar. Journal ofEnglish and know that the best way to account for Germanic Philology, 1927, 26, 444-446. final products is through the study of Bloomfield, L., Meaning. Monatshefte fur Deutschen Unterricht, 1943, 35, 101-106. function, which implies the study of the (Reprinted in C. F. Hockett, [Ed.], A Leonard individual organism: we are back with Bloomfield Anthology. Bloomington, IN: In- speakers and listeners in real life episodes. diana University Press, 1970.) The adoption of a formal frame of Branch, M. N. & Malagodi, E. F., Where have reference entails immediate decisions as to all the behaviorists gone? The Behavior Analyst, 1980,3 (1), 31-38. what constitute relevant questions, what Catania, A. C., Chomsky's formal analysis of are pertinent answers, and how we are to natural languages: A behavioral translation. relate the former with the latter. In par- Behaviorism, 1972, 1, 1-15. ticular, a commitment to the analysis of Catania, A. C., The psychologies of structure, function, and development. A merican sentences and parts thereof leads to a con- Psychologist, 1973,28, 434-443. centration on the response term of the Chomsky, N., Syntactic structures. The Hague: contingencies and indirectly supports the Mouton, 1957. view that responses can be analyzed as in- Chomsky, N., Aspects of the \ theory of dependent objects. This is what a func- syntax. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1965. Clark, H. B. & Sherman, J., Teaching gener- tional account was supposed to set right. ative use of sentence answers to three forms of Efforts at reconciliation are always questions. Journal of Applied Behavior laudable. But in view of the facts, any Analysis, 1975, 8, 321-330. rapprochement between linguistics and an Danks, J. H. & Glucksberg, S., Experimental of as psycholinguistics. Annual Review of Psychol- analysis language behavior which is ogy, 1980, 31, 391-417. verbal will take a great deal more than Fillenbaum, S., Psycholinguistics. Annual Re- "some culling, some paraphrasing and in- view ofPsychology, 1971, 22, 251-308. terpreting, and some granting the bene- Findley, J. D., An experimental outline for fit of the doubt," as Segal (1975) has building and exploring multioperant behavior repertoires. Journal of the Experimental phrased it. The ultimate question is Analysis ofBehavior, 1962, 5, 113-166. whether the imported techniques yield Gross, M., On the failure of generative greater insight into the properties of ver- grammar. Language, 1979, 55, 859-885. bal repertoires; no matter how you look at Harris, Z. S., Discourse analysis. Language, it, the final 1952,28, 1-30. questions remain functional Harris, Z. S. & Voegelin, C. F., Eliciting in (Julia, in press). We are less interested in linguistics. Southwestern Journal of An- translating formal frameworks into thropology, 1953, 9, 59-72. behavioral terms than in designing more Harris, Z. S., Transformational theory. Language, effective techniques for the control of the 1965, 41, 363-401. Hiz, H., Methodological aspects of the theory subject matter in all its functional of syntax. (Review of Aspects of the theory of complexity. syntax by N. Chomsky). The Journal of Philosophy, 1967, 64, 67-74. Hiz, H., Disambiguation. In Greimas, A. J. et al (Eds.) Sign language, culture. The Hague: Mouton, 1970. Hockett, C. F., Two models of grammatical REFERENCE NOTES description. Word, 1954, 10, 210-231. Jespersen, O., The philosophy of grammar. 1. JuliA, P., Some methodological remarks con- London: George Allen & Unwin, 1924. cerning the specification of verbal response Johnson-Laird, P. N., Experimental psycholin- topography. Research report. Institute for guistics. Annual Review of Psychology, 1974, Behavioral Research, Silver Spring, MD, 1968. 25, 135-160. 2. JuliA, P., Ambiguity in linguistic theory. Paper Joos, M., (Ed.), Readings in linguistics. presented at the Second Meeting of the North- Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learn- American Catalan Society, Yale University, ed Societies, 1957. April 1980. JuliA, P., El formalismo en psicolinguistica: LINGUISTICS 19

Reflexiones metodologicas. Madrid: Fundacion & T. Quinn, (Eds.), The psychology of second Juan March, 1980. language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge JuliA, P., Explanatory models in linguistics: A University Press, 1971. behavioral perspective. Princeton, N.J.: Saussure, F. de Cours de linguistique Princeton University Press. In press. generale. Paris: Payot, 1916. Lovaas, I. & Newsom, C. D., Behavior modi- Schumaker, J. & Sherman, J., Training genera- fication of psychotic children. In H. Leittenberg, tive verb usage by imitation and reinforcement (Ed.), Handbook of behavior modification and procedures. Journal of Applied Behavior behavior therapy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Analysis, 1970,3, 273-287. Prentice-Hall, 1976. Segal, E. F. Psycholinguistics discovers the Lutzker, J. & Sherman, J., Producing genera- operant. (Review of A first language: The early tive sentence usage by imitation and reinforce- stages by R. Brown). Journal of the Experimen- ment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, tal Analysis of Behavior, 1975, 23, 149-158. 1974, 7, 447-460. Segal, E. F. Toward a coherent psychology of Miller, G. A., Some psychological studies of language. In W. K. Honig & J. E. R. Staddon, grammar. American Psychologist, 1962, 17, 748- (Eds.), Handbook of operant behavior. 762. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Miller, G. A., Some preliminaries to psycho- Skinner, B. F. Verbal behavior. New York: linguistics. American Psychologist, 1965, 20, 15- Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957. 20. Skinner, B. F. The flight from the laboratory. Osgood, C. E. & Sebeok, T. A., Psycholinguistics: In W. Dennis (Ed.), Current trends in A survey of theory and research problems. psychological theory. Pittsburgh: University of Baltimore: Waverley Press, 1954. Pittsburgh Press, 1961. Quine, W. V. O., From a logical point of Skinner, B. F. Operant behavior. In W. K. Honig view. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University (Ed.), Operant behavior: Areas of research and Press, 1953. application. New York: Appleton-Century- Robinson, G., Procedures for the acquisition Crofts, 1966. of syntax. In W. K. Honig & J. E. R. Staddon, Smith, N. V. Syntax for psychologists. In (Eds.), Handbook of operant behavior. J. Norton & J. C. Marshall (Eds.), Psycho- Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977. linguistics 2: Structures and processes. Cam- Sailor, W., Reinforcement and generalization bridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1979. of productive plural allomorphs in two retarded Stemmer, N., Natural concepts and generaliza- children. Journal ofApplied Behavior Analysis, tion classes. The Behavior Analyst, 1980, 3 (2), 1974, 4, 305-310. 41-48. Salzinger, K., Are theories of competence Whitehurst, G. J., Production of novel and necessary? Annals of the New York Academy of grammatical utterances by young children. Jour- Sciences, 1975,263, 178-196. nal ofExperimental Child Psychology, 1972, 13, Sapon, S. M., On defining a response: A cru- 502-515. cial problem in verbal behavior. In P. Pimsleur,