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Probability Versus Demonstration

المؤلف:  SPIKE GILDEA

المصدر:  RECONSTRUCTING GRAMMAR

الجزء والصفحة:  C5-P162

2026-08-23

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Probability Versus Demonstration

When hypotheses such as those mentioned in the previous section are advanced, what is sought is ‘proof’, and indeed phrases like ‘to demonstrate’ the relationship of A to B, a terminology which is, of course, ultimately taken from geometry, are frequently used. What is sought is certainty of the kind attainable in mathematics and logic. I believe there is at least a dim realization that in all empirical sciences, as against logic and mathematics, in which truths flow infallibly and tautologically from definitions, all that we can get are results so close to certainty that for all practical purposes we can consider them certain, that is, a hypothesis which is overwhelmingly better than any other. In the search for infallibility, certain criteria have been advanced which some linguists think will bring them results which are tantamount to certainty. The two most popular are the existence of sound correspondences and the reconstruction of a proto language from which the languages hypothesized to be related can be derived. Both of these will be considered later. For the moment, it is to be noted that the two approaches involve somewhat different metaphors from different nonlinguistic fields. Sound correspondences are often called laws, or more exactly, the sound changes that give rise to the correspondences, are the so-called ‘sound laws’. Here the analogue is to the laws of nature, which like sound changes brook no exceptions. They thus vicariously share the certainty and prestige of such laws as the laws of gravitation, one which is of course empirically founded. The metaphor of reconstruction is more like that of logic. The reconstructed forms are like postulates, and the changes like laws of deduction. Thus, the forms to be explained are derived by a procedure which has some analogy to that of deductive logic and in this way participates in its prestige and certainty.