An Attempt at the Experimentum Crucis in Modern Linguistic Theory

Abstract

Although Popper’s demarcation criterion was the possibil­ity of refutation of an empirical system through experience, further consideration of naturalistic falsificationism offered the idea that scientific hypotheses could not be refuted, in the logical sense, completely and conclusively. So, the question of a reformulation of the demarcation criterion cropped up. There­fore, Popper formulated a set of methodological conventions whose acceptance brings about the conditions for the crucial experiment (in the sense of negative evidence), i.e. conclusive refutation is made possible. In this paper I shall try to list a set of methodological conventions by the help of which crucial experimentation could become feasible having in mind the present state of the art in the methodology of linguistics as a science and, together with a critique of the prevailing assumptions in linguistic methodology, I plan to describe my own conclusions based on Popper’s framework.

Keywords: Popper, Demarcation, Science, Non-Science, Falsifiability, Linguistic Science, Hypothetico-Deductive Framework