Sanctioning and grammaticality
Of course, any model of grammar must account for how speakers know what counts as a well-formed or grammatical utterance in his or her language. In the cognitive approach, well-formedness is accounted for on the basis of conventionality. Recall that the grammar is conceptualised not as an abstract system of rules, but as an inventory of symbolic units. Moreover, these symbolic units are derived from language use. The cognitive model captures generalisations and defines well-formedness on the basis of a categorisation process. For example, if the structure of an utterance produced by a speaker can be categorised as an instance of an existing schema, it is well-formed. Langacker uses the term sanction to refer to this categorisation process. For example, coding is the process whereby a speaker searches for a linguistic expression in order to express a concept. If the form the speaker arrives at matches forms existing in his or her inventory, this represents a case of sanction and thus well formedness. The ability of language users to create novel forms according to the patterns of their language is accounted for by extrapolation from an existing pattern in the inventory, and this is when structure-building comes into the picture. Langacker (1987: 72) provides the example of a child describing a pie as apricoty. Although this is a novel form in the sense that it is not conventionalised, it clearly corresponds to a productive pattern in the inventory: many adjectives contain the derivational suffix -y (e.g. fruity, funny, stinky). Because well-formedness is conceived in terms of conventionality and conventionality is a matter of degree, it follows that well-formedness is also a matter of degree.
For example, Langacker demonstrates that acceptability of passive constructions depends on a number of factors, which give rise to graded grammaticality judgements. Consider the following examples of passive constructions. A question mark before the sentence indicates that the sentence is not perfectly well-formed but is acceptable. Two question marks indicate somewhat less acceptability. This convention is used in a system with asterisks which, as we have seen, indicate complete ungrammaticality.
The examples in (45) become progressively less acceptable as the subject of the sentence moves from being definite or individuated to becoming less definite or individuated. In (46), the examples become progressively less acceptable the less the verb relates to a prototypical physical action.
This brief overview suffices to map out the general architecture of the cognitive model. We return to explore each of these issues in more detail in subsequent chapters.
