Is syntactic knowledge probabilistic? Experiments with the English dative alternation

Abstract

Theoretical linguistics traditionally relies on linguistic intuitions such as grammatical-ity judgments for data. But the massive growth of language technologies has made the spontaneous use of language in natural settings a rich and easily accessible alter-native source of data. Moreover, studies of usage as well as intuitive judgments have shown that linguistic intuitions of grammaticality are deeply flawed, because (1) they seriously underestimate the space of grammatical possibility by ignoring the effects of multiple conflicting formal, semantic, and contextual constraints, and (2) they may re-flect probability instead of grammaticality. Both of these points are richly exemplified

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