Linguistic Intuitions Revisited

Why are linguistic intuitions good evidence for a grammar? In ‘Intuitions in Linguistics’ ([2006a]) and Ignorance of Language ([2006b]), I looked critically at some Chomskian answers and proposed another one. In this article, I respond to Fitzgerald’s ‘Linguistic Intuitions’ ([2010]), a sweeping critique of my position, and to Culbertson and Gross’ ‘Are Linguists Better Subjects?’ ([2009]), a criticism of one consequence of the position. In rejecting these criticisms, I emphasize that the issue over linguistic intuitions concerns only metalinguistic ones. And I argue that my critics, like many others, make too much of the distinction between grammaticality and acceptability intuitions. 1 Summary and Developments 1.1 Summary 1.2 ‘Intuitions’ in what sense? 1.3 Grammaticality versus acceptability 2 Fitzgerald 2.1 Do Chomskians subscribe to VoC? 2.2 The main case against VoC 2.3 Fitzgerald’s defense of VoC 2.4 Two additional criticisms of VoC 2.5 Fitzgerald’s criticisms of my alternative 2.6 Conclusion 3 Culbertson and Gross 3.1 Acceptability versus grammaticality 3.2 The experiment