What an utter embarrassment for everyone involved. linguistlist.org/issues/37/687/

@pictureofitself why?

@MagnusPharao x.com/pictureofitsel…

@pictureofitself I'd say the assumption of autonomy of syntax has been shown to be a dead end... and that there are tonnes of ways in which syntax is obviously influenced by semantics and pragmatics. But then I would say that, being a funcitonalist..

@MagnusPharao Influenced by sem-prag diachronically? Sure. Fully reducible to sem-prag in the minds of current speakers? Lmao, no. (And note: this is explicitly the hypothesis that the clowns linked above are pursuing.)

@pictureofitself "to explore ways in which the syntax of a sentence might be influenced by its semantics" doesn't sound like "fully reducible to semantics" to me

@MagnusPharao @pictureofitself How would diachronic influence without synchronic influence even work? A process of continuous evolution based on functional pressure requires the syntax-semantics boundary to be leaky and therefore destroys any strong autonomy assumptions.

@chrisinthebooks @MagnusPharao lol no. Syntax has endless things that are synchronically arbitrary but which can be traced to diachronic pressures (whose causal elements are often, by now, completely opaque to the naive speaker). The diachronic shifts are what is being influenced.

@pictureofitself @MagnusPharao How do you think diachronic shifts get influenced if no synchronic change is ever driven by semantics or pragmatics? You're deliberately assuming a maximal position I never stated then demolishing that, and not addressing that your own claim assumes no absolute autonomy of syntax

@chrisinthebooks @MagnusPharao Let me give you a concrete example that would perhaps help clarify: "You" was a purely plural pronoun, which was getting overused due to a pragmatic pressure (style/politeness). At some point, it got reanalyzed by young people acquiring the language as a 1/

@chrisinthebooks @MagnusPharao number-neutral pronoun. At that point, the fact that it governs plural agreement even with a singular referent became opaque, synchronically, to speakers. Voilà: pragmatic pressure on diachrony without any pragmatic pressure on synchronic syntactic representations. 2/2

@pictureofitself @MagnusPharao This firstly assumes that pragmatics causing an "overuse" of a form doesn't violate autonomy of syntax. But ignoring that...

@pictureofitself @MagnusPharao Now do British plural agreement with singular collective nouns without an appeal to semantics at any point in the chain.

@pictureofitself @MagnusPharao Even if you say the original example was an ambiguously plural committee type noun, the generalisation of semantic verb plural agreement over formal agreement cannot be waved away as residual syntax.

@chrisinthebooks @MagnusPharao You seem to not understand some basic points: 1. Language ≠ Language Use Wrt "you", prag. influenced the latter not the former. 2. What *formal* means The point is precisely that "you" is *formally* plural while semantically entirely underspecified.

@chrisinthebooks @MagnusPharao I'm muting you now - one of the joys of being a FORMER academic is that it's not my job to remediate your ignorance. 👋

@pictureofitself @chrisinthebooks Chris is one of the least ignorant people I know

@MagnusPharao @chrisinthebooks He sure ain't showing it here 🤷‍♂️

@pictureofitself @chrisinthebooks I think he is saying the samecthing I am, just not as pithily 🙃