Editing Generative grammar (section)

=== Competence versus performance ===

Generative grammar generally distinguishes [[linguistic competence]] and [[linguistic performance]].<ref name ="WasowHandbookCompPerf">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Generative Grammar|encyclopedia=The Handbook of Linguistics|year=2003|last=Wasow|first=Thomas|author-link=Tom Wasow|editor-last1=Aronoff|editor-first1=Mark|editor-last2=Ress-Miller|editor-first2=Janie|publisher= Blackwell|url=https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/WWW_Content/9780631204978/12.pdf|doi=10.1002/9780470756409.ch12}|pages=297-298}}</ref> Competence is the collection of subconscious rules that one knows when one knows a language; performance is the system which puts these rules to use.<ref name ="WasowHandbookCompPerf"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Pritchett|first=Bradley|year=1992|title=Grammatical competence and parsing performance|publisher=University of Chicago Press|page=2|isbn=0-226-68442-3}}</ref> This distinction is related to the broader notion of [[David Marr (neuroscientist)#Levels_of_analysis|Marr's levels]] used in other cognitive sciences, with competence corresponding to Marr's computational level.<ref>{{cite book |last=Marr|first=David|author-link=David Marr  (neuroscientist)|year=1982|title=Vision|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0262514620|page=28}}</ref>

For example, generative theories generally provide competence-based explanations for why [[English language|English]] speakers would judge the sentence in (1)<!--This refers to "*That cats is eating the mouse". Please update labels if necessary.--> as [[acceptability (linguistics)|odd]]. In these explanations, the sentence would be [[ungrammatical]] because the rules of English only generate sentences where [[demonstrative]]s [[Agreement (linguistics)|agree]] with the [[grammatical number]] of their associated [[noun]].<ref name = "AdgerCompPerf">{{cite book |last=Adger|first=David|author-link=David Adger|year=2003|title=Core syntax: A minimalist approach|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=4-7,17|isbn=978-0199243709}}</ref>

:(1) *That cats is eating the mouse.

By contrast, generative theories generally provide performance-based explanations for the oddness of [[center embedding]] sentences like one in (2).<!--This refers to "The cat that the dog that the man fed chased meowed." Please update labels if necessary.--> According to such explanations, the grammar of English could in principle generate such sentences, but doing so in practice is so taxing on [[working memory]] that the sentence ends up being [[parsing|unparsable]].<ref name = "AdgerCompPerf" /><ref name="DillonMomaSlides">{{citation |url=https://shotam.github.io/LING611_slides/LING611_day1.pdf|last1=Dillon|first1=Brian|last2=Momma|first2=Shota|title=Psychological background to linguistic theories|year=2021|type=Course notes}}</ref>

:(2) *The cat that the dog that the man fed chased meowed.

In general, performance-based explanations deliver a simpler theory of grammar at the cost of additional assumptions about memory and parsing. As a result, the choice between a competence-based explanation and a performance-based explanation for a given phenomenon is not always obvious and can require investigating whether the additional assumptions are supported by independent evidence.<ref name="DillonMomaSlides"/><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Deriving competing predictions from grammatical approaches and reductionist approaches to island effects|encyclopedia=Experimental syntax and island effects|year=2013|last1=Sprouse|first1=Jon|last2=Wagers|first2=Matt|last3=Phillips|first3=Colin|author-link3=Colin Phillips|editor-last1=Sprouse|editor-first1=Jon|editor-last2=Hornstein|editor-first2=Norbert|editor-link2=Norbert Hornstein|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CBO9781139035309.002}}</ref> For example, while many generative models of syntax explain [[syntactic island|island effects]] by positing constraints within the grammar, it has also been argued that some or all of these constraints are in fact the result of limitations on performance.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=On the nature of island constraints I: Language processing and reductionist accounts|encyclopedia=Experimental syntax and island effects|year=2013|last=Phillips|first=Colin|editor-last1=Sprouse|editor-first1=Jon|editor-last2=Hornstein|editor-first2=Norbert|publisher=Cambridge University Press|url=http://www.colinphillips.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/phillips2013_islands1.pdf|doi=10.1017/CBO9781139035309.005}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Islands in the grammar? Standards of evidence|encyclopedia=Experimental syntax and island effects|year=2013|last1=Hofmeister|first1=Philip|last2=Staum Casasanto|first2=Laura|last3=Sag|first3=Ivan|author-link3=Ivan Sag|editor-last1=Sprouse|editor-first1=Jon|editor-last2=Hornstein|editor-first2=Norbert|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/CBO9781139035309.004}}</ref>

Non-generative approaches often do not posit any distinction between competence and performance. For instance, [[usage-based models of language]] assume that grammatical patterns arise as the result of usage.<ref> {{cite book|last1=Vyvyan|first1=Evans|author-link=Vyvyan Evans|last2=Green|first2=Melanie|year=2006|title=Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|pages=108-111|isbn=0-7486-1832-5}}</ref>