A Paradigm Change for Formal Syntax: Computational Algorithms in the Grammar of English

Abstract: Language sciences rely less and less on formal syntax as their base. The reason is probably its lack of psychological reality, knowingly avoided. Philosophers of science call for a paradigm shift in which explanations are by mechanisms, as in biology. We turned to programming languages as heuristic models for a process-based syntax of English. The combination of a functional word and a content word was chosen as the topic of modeling. Such combinations are very frequent, and their output is the important immediate constituents of sentences. We found their parallel in Object Oriented Programming where an all-methods element serves as an interface, and the content-full element serves as its implementation, defining computational objects. The fit of the model was tested by deriving three functional characteristics crucial for the algorithm and checking their presence in English grammar. We tested the reality of the interface-implementation mechanism on psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic evidence concerning processing, development and loss of syntax. The close fit and psychological reality of the mechanism suggests that a paradigm shift to an algorithmic theory of syntax is a possibility.