Per una soluzione teorica e storica dei rapporti tra grammatica generativa e linguistica dei corpora

Vent’anni fa Charles Fillmore iniziava un suo articolo con le seguenti parole: [...] These two [armchair linguist and corpus linguist] don’t speak to each other very often, but when they do the corpus linguist says to the armchair linguist, “Why should I think that what you tell me is true?”, and the armchair linguist says to the corpus linguist, “Why should I think that what you tell me is interesting?” [...] I have two major observations to make. The first is that I don’t think there can be any corpora, however large, that contain information about all of the areas of English lexicon and grammar that I want to explore; all that I have seen are inadequate. The second observation is that every corpus that I’ve had a chance to examine, however small, has taught me facts that I couldn’t imagine finding out about in any other way. My conclusion is that the two kinds of linguists need each other. Or better, that the two kinds of linguists, wherever possible, should exist in the same body. (Fillmore 1992, p. 35). Sembrerebbero conclusioni talmente ragionevoli e di buon senso che ci si sarebbe aspettato che qualsiasi persona, non dico linguista, dovrebbe essersi trovato d’accordo. Ed invece così non fu. Come mai? A questa domanda (ed ad altre consimili) cercherà di rispondere il presente articolo offrendo alcune interpretazioni e proposizioni.