Well-formedness

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In linguistics, well-formedness is the quality of a clause, word, or other linguistic element that conforms to the grammar of the language of which it is a part. Well-formed words or phrases are grammatical, meaning they obey all relevant rules of grammar. In contrast, a form that violates some grammar rule is ill-formed and does not constitute part of the language.

A word may be phonologically well-formed, meaning it conforms to the sound pattern of the language. For example, the nonce word wug coined by Jean Berko Gleason is phonologically well-formed, so informants are able to pluralize it regularly.{{cite journal |last1=Breiss |first1=Canaan |title=Inside the wug-test: phonological well-formedness and processing costs |date=2021 |url=https://www.cuny2021.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CUNY_2021_abstract_350.pdf |access-date=21 September 2023}} A word, phrase, clause, or utterance may be grammatically well-formed, meaning it obeys the rules of morphology and syntax. A semantically well-formed utterance or sentence is one that is meaningful. Grammatical well-formedness and semantic well-formedness do not always coincide. For example, the following sentence is grammatically well-formed, but has no clear meaning.

:Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.{{cite book|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|authorlink=Noam Chomsky|title=Syntactic Structures|url=https://archive.org/details/syntacticstructu00chom_775|url-access=limited|year=1957|publisher=Mouton|location=The Hague/Paris|page=[https://archive.org/details/syntacticstructu00chom_775/page/n17 15]|isbn=3-11-017279-8}}

The concept of well-formedness was developed in generative grammar during the twentieth century.{{cite book|title=Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction|last=Lyons|first=John|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1996|isbn=0521438772}} Sometimes native speakers of a language do not agree whether a particular word, phrase, or clause is well-formed. This problem of gradient well-formedness, uncertainty about the well-formedness of a particular example, is a problem for generative linguistics, which assumes that grammar follows some universal patterns that should not vary among speakers.

Gradient well-formedness

Gradient well-formedness is a problem that arises in the analysis of data in generative linguistics, in which a linguistic entity is neither completely grammatical nor completely ungrammatical. A native speaker may judge a word, phrase or pronunciation as "not quite right" or "almost there," rather than dismissing it as completely unacceptable or fully accepting it as well-formed. Thus, the acceptability of the given entity lies on a "gradient" between well-formedness and ill-formedness. Some generative linguists think that ill-formedness might be strictly additive, thus trying to figure out universal constraints by acquiring scalar grammaticality judgments from informants. Generally, however, gradient well-formedness is considered an unsolved problem in generative linguistics.

Well-formedness

Gradient well-formedness

See also

References

Further reading