Below, the questions from the main part of the questionnaire (excluding the background questions) are presented in the order they appeared in the ques- tionnaire (including any typos or other errors that might also have been in- cluded in the questionnaire as presented to participants). The boldface text are shorthand names for each question that will be used throughout the next few chapters. They were not displayed in the questionnaire. The numbers refer to the order of the questions in chapter 6. The questions will be presented again in chapter 6 as the respective answers are analysed. See all of the questions, including background questions, in the questionnaire in appendix A.
Stand alone (later Q1)
When studying grammatical phenomena, syntactic intuitions ...
1. ... can in some cases stand alone as evidence.
2. ... can in some cases serve as evidence but can never stand alone.
3. ... can in no way be used as evidence.
4. [Supply other answer]
Subject matter (later Q6)
When I study grammatical phenomena, I ultimately seek to under- stand ...
1. ... the systematic patterns found in linguistic behaviour.
2. ... the linguistic capacity of the mind.
3. [Supply other answer]
Acceptability/grammaticality (later Q3)
Most native speakers of English would find the sentence ‘the dog that the woman that the man saw owned ran’ to be an intuitively
unnatural sentence in English. In the terminology of generative lin- guistics, the sentence isunacceptable to those speakers (this is not to be confused with whether or not the sentence is infelicitous to the speakers in some specific context). Most native speakers would also most likely find the sentence intuitively ungrammatical. However, some experts argue that it is, in fact, grammatical.
To the extent syntactic intuitions can serve as evidence for theories of grammar, only those syntactic intuitions can serve as evidence that are ...
1. ... acceptability intuitions.
2. ... grammaticality intuitions.
3. [Supply other answer]
Origin (later Q2)
When syntactic intuitions are reliable as evidence, this is mainly because ...
1. ... they are speakers’reflectionsabout language use, and speak- ers are to some degree reliable judges about this.
2. ... they express speaker’scompetence in their native language.
3. [Supply other answer]
Rules (later Q7)
Syntactic intuitions is one type of evidence used by linguists to char- acterise how languages are structured. Let’s call the rules that de- scribe this thestructure rules of particular languages.
The structure rules that linguists describe are sometimes said to be “implemented in the minds of speakers”.
1. It is a good hypothesis that structure rules are actually imple- mented in the minds of speakers.
2. From the structure rules we observe, we can only infer that the mind worksas if it was following those rules.
3. From the structure rules we observe, we cannot infer anything about how the mind processes language.
4. [Supply other answer]
Implementation (later Q8)
There must be something in the mind that gives rise to what we call
“rules of grammar”.
1. The rules of grammar are probably explicitly represented in the mind. If one could look into subjects’ minds, one could find explicit rules.
2. The rules of grammar are implemented in the mind, but they are probably not explicitly represented.
3. The rules of grammar are probably not implemented in the mind.
4. [Supply other answer]
Deduced (later Q4)
Syntactic intuitions are sometimes said to be “deduced from the speaker’s mental grammar”.
1. This is probably a poor description of how intuitions are formed.
2. This is a good way to talk about how intuitions are formed but should probably not be taken too literally.
3. This is likely to be the actual process of how syntactic intuitions are formed in the mind.
4. [Supply other answer]
Fallibility (later Q5)
Imagine you could abstract away all performance factors that might influence a speaker’s syntactic intuitions. In that case, it would be possible for the resulting syntactic intuitions to be mistaken about the grammatical properties of the sentence.
1. Strongly agree 2. Somewhat agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Somewhat disagree 5. Strongly disagree
Experts and ordinary speakers (later Q9)
The syntactic intuitions of linguists working on theories of grammar are,on average, ...
1. ... worse evidence for theories of grammar than the syntactic intuitions of ordinary speakers.
2. ... equally good evidence for theories of grammar as the syn- tactic intuitions of ordinary speakers.
3. ... better evidence for theories of grammar than the syntactic intuitions of ordinary speakers.
4. [Supply other answer]
Traditional methods (later Q12)
In general, consulting one’s own or one’s colleague’s syntactic intu- itions produces good evidence for theories of grammar.
1. Strongly agree 2. Somewhat agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Somewhat disagree 5. Strongly disagree
Experimental methods (later Q13)
In general, syntactic intuitions should be collected and analysed by experimental methods from large numbers of speakers and using statistical tests.
1. Strongly agree 2. Somewhat agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Somewhat disagree 5. Strongly disagree
Theoretical virtues (later Q10)
In general, if one has to choose, it is more important that a theory is built on reliable data than that it lives up to theoretical virtues such as simplicity, elegance, and fruitfulness.
1. Strongly agree 2. Somewhat agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Somewhat disagree 5. Strongly disagree Gradience (later Q11)
Some linguists use gradient rather than binary scales to collect syn- tactic intuitions.
1. Well-designed gradient scales may very well reflect real degrees of grammaticality.
2. Even well-designed gradient scales probably just capture effects that are not due to grammaticality.
3. [Supply other answer]
Significance 1 (later Q14)
Can you think of a situation, before answering this survey, where you thought about whether syntactic intuitions can serve as evidence for theories of grammar?
1. Yes 2. No
3. [Supply other answer]
Significance 2 (later Q15)
Linguists who use intuitions as evidence should set aside time to considerwhy intuitions can serve as evidence for their theories.
1. Strongly agree 2. Somewhat agree
3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Somewhat disagree 5. Strongly disagree
After each question, participants had the optional possibility of commenting on the topic of the question. This prompt had the following form:
Optional:
Would you like to elaborate on your answer or comment on anything else regarding this section?
After the main section of the questionnaire, participants were asked a number of questions about their demographic background and previous use of intuitive judgements as evidence for grammatical theories. At the end of the question- naire, participants could sign up for updates about the study, indicate that they would be interested in participating in potential follow-up interviews (which, in the end, were not performed), and they were also able to sign up for a lottery for 10 vouchers for Amazon.com for $25 each.