On the interpretation of ‘nonsense strings’

Abstract

Katz's statement of the core of the problem of ungrammaticalness is worth quoting at length: ‘The knowledge that enables a speaker to understand sentences – his knowledge of the rules of the grammar – must be identically the knowledge that enables him to understand semi-sentences, for semi-sentences are understood in terms of their well-formed parts. Moreover, the knowledge a speaker uses to recognize the respects in which a semi-sentence is ungrammatical is also his knowledge of grammaticality: knowledge of the grammatical rules is here employed to discover instances of their violation.…