2. The scientific method in morphosyntax
2.6. Becoming a linguist: Scientific writing in morphosyntax
As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, morphosyntax is a science because it follows the scientific method. When we write about morphology and syntax, we use a genre of scientific writing. However, not all scientific fields follow the same conventions. In this section, we will learn about the genre of scientific writing used in morphology and syntax.
The structure of a morphosyntax paper
A lot of scientific fields use a formulaic structure known as the IMRaD structure, which stands for “Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.” Although all of those components show up in a morphosyntax paper, we rarely use that structure in morphosyntax. The IMRaD structure is used for papers that discuss formal experiments and analyze their results using statistics. Although morphologists and syntacticians sometimes publish papers about formal experiments in the IMRaD format, the vast majority of morphology and syntax papers follow a less formulaic structure. Papers should still begin with an introduction and end with a conclusion, but the body of the paper typically weaves together description of data, analysis of data, and discussion of the implications of the data throughout.
The introduction and conclusion
The introduction of a paper should typically be less than a fifth of the total length of the paper. In it, you should clearly state the main claim of your paper and summarize your main arguments. You should also contextualize your main claim, explaining why it is important and what theories or frameworks you are working with.
Because the structure of each morphology and syntax paper is unique, most papers end the introduction with a description of the structure of the paper. This is often called the overview, outline, or roadmap. Here’s an example from Alhailawani (2023):
This article is organized as follows. In section 2, I provide an overview of languages with P-drop [Preposition-drop]. I also discuss the two main approaches to P-drop, with representative examples. In section 3, I set out the JA [Jordanian Arabic] P-drop facts and note the similarities and differences between JA and other P-drop languages. In section 4, I discuss and refute an analysis of JA P-drop in terms of pseudo noun incorporation. Section 5 shows that a silent P analysis of P-drop fares better at capturing the JA P-drop data. In section 6, I argue for an analysis of P-drop in JA where PP and DP are present, showing that the analysis neatly captures the JA P-drop facts. Section 7 is a brief conclusion.
Your conclusion should repeat most of the same information as the introduction, except perhaps in a briefer format. You should re-state your main claim and re-summarize your main arguments. You should also return to the contextualization of your paper, restating why it is important and how your paper contributes to the field. Sometimes, a conclusion can also suggest areas for further study.
Here’s the conclusion from the same paper about Jordanian Arabic (Alhailawani 2023):
In this article, I provided a detailed description of P-drop in JA. I showed that the main properties of P-drop found in other P-drop languages hold in JA. I refuted an analysis of P-drop in terms of pseudo noun incorporation (Gehrke and Lekakou 2013, Hall 2019), showing that the prepositionless goal noun in JA does not behave like a pseudo-incorporated nominal. I showed that the noun in JA P-drop exhibits the typical properties of a regular referential DP. I applied some diagnostics of PP-hood to show that there is a silent PP structure involved in JA P-drop. Thus, I argued for an analysis of P-drop in which a PP structure is present but unpronounced (Myler 2013, Biggs 2014, Bailey 2018, among others). The silent P is licensed via incorporation of P into v (den Dikken 2010), which in turn explains the absence of P-drop with manner of motion verbs. Also, the goal DP is assigned case in situ via Agree with a higher p head in a split p/P structure (Svenonius 2007). P-drop is a relatively understudied phenomenon due to its restrictive nature. The arguments and analysis presented in this article contribute to the ongoing debate on the underlying mechanisms involved in P-drop.
Let’s practice analyzing this writing so we can learn from it!
- Compare the conclusion from the outline from the introduction. Match the parts of the outline to the restatement in the conclusion. How is the wording different? Which one provides more detail? What other differences do you notice between the outline from the introduction and the conclusion?
- Where does the author contextualize their paper, showing how it contributes to the field?
Remember that you’re not writing a mystery novel! It can be tempting to make a big reveal at the end with your final analysis, or describe all the false paths you went down when trying to complete your analysis, but doing so will typically be frustrating and confusing to your reader. Instead, present it simply: say what you’re going to do in your paper, do it, and then say what you’ve done.
It may feel repetitive to write like that, but remember that you’ve (hopefully) thought about the subject of your paper for a while and are very familiar with it, but your reader is probably learning about it for the first time and does not know your thinking process. Good, clear writing often feels repetitive to the author. For example, notice how the example outline from the introduction and the conclusion from Alhailawani (2023) repeat many of the same points.
If you are reading someone else’s paper, it is often a good idea to read the abstract, the introduction, and the conclusion of the paper first. This will help you decide if this is the right paper for you to read right now, and if so, which sections will be the most important or relevant for you. You should also usually be able to get an idea of the main point of the paper, which can help you to understand the paper as a whole.
The body
Before you start writing the body of a morphology or syntax paper, I would recommend making a list of the topics you are going to discuss in your paper and then deciding what order they should go in. Think about what your reader needs to already know in order to understand each part of your paper. Sometimes one argument builds on another argument, which determines which order they should go in.
The body of your paper should be divided into several sections with headers, especially if your paper is longer than about four pages. Each section should also be structured kind of like a whole paper: every section should have an introduction and conclusion that explains the main idea of the section and connects the content of the section back to the topic of the paper. This is recursive, so for even longer papers, your sections should be divided into subsections, and so on.
The headers for each section should be numbered and should have titles that clearly indicate what the section is about. Some papers number the introduction as section 1, but others number it as section 0 or give it no number at all.
Style in morphology and syntax papers
Sometimes when students begin to write university-level papers, they try to use complex vocabulary and sentence structure to look more sophisticated. But the best papers take complex ideas and explain them in simple language. You want to be as clear and concise as you are able. Do not use a more complex vocabulary when simpler terms will do.
There seems to exist a belief that professional scientific writing needs to have a certain tone – impersonal, dense, abstract. I often see it in students who try to imitate that drab style […] A lot of academics do write that way; nobody thinks that academics ought to write that way. In fact, editors and readers usually very much prefer if you don’t write that way.
-Rohrer 2024
One of the biggest obstacles to writing clearly and concisely in academic writing is that we are trying to explain intricate ideas. Academic writing often turns out complex because the ideas that the author is trying to convey are complex. On the other hand, it is very impressive if you manage to explain a complex idea in simple language, without simplifying the concept.
Another big obstacle to writing clearly and concisely in academic writing is that we are trying to be very precise. We use technical terms as appropriate because technical terms have precise definitions in our academic community. Our sentences may also become complex when we try to accurately convey exactly what we mean. When we aren’t sure about our conclusions, or if our conclusions only apply in some cases, we try to be very clear about how sure we are and how our understanding is limited. For example, don’t say always unless you’re sure it actually happens always. Instead, write usually or often or maybe even just sometimes.
Keep in mind that many academics are actually not very good writers. If you find a paper that is hard to read, try to figure out if it’s because the writing is not clear or because the ideas are difficult. There are some papers that you should not be imitating. Instead, what you should learn from those papers is what not to do.
Academics also tend to use abbreviations, as you no doubt observed in the two examples above from Alhailawani (2023). Try not to use too many abbreviations; it can become very overwhelming for the reader. But it is alright to use a few. However, when you introduce an abbreviation for the first time, make sure you specify what the abbreviation means. This is usually done by writing out the term in full the first time, with the abbreviation afterwards in parentheses, as shown below (Alhailawani 2023):
In Jordanian Arabic (JA), directional prepositions like ʕa and li ‘to’ can be dropped with certain motion verbs like yiruuħ ‘go’ and yewsal ‘arrive’ …
The reverse can also be done, with the portion that does not appear in the abbreviation in parentheses, as with the following example from Alhailawani (2023):
In Greek and some varieties of British English, the complement of some motion verbs can optionally appear without an overt preposition or a determiner. […] This phenomenon is known as P(reposition)-drop
(Ioannidou and den Dikken 2009)
Word choice in scientific and linguistics writing
In scientific writing, we need to be very precise with our language. In this section, I will describe some of the words that we need to be especially careful with.
Proof, evidence, and fact
You should very rarely claim that you have proved something or that some piece of evidence is proof of something. The scientific definition of proof means you can show that it holds in all cases. There is no possible scenario where it could be wrong, not even a very unlikely scenario. Most often, proof is used for logical proofs, which is a formal way of demonstrating that certain base assumptions logically lead to particular conclusions.
When students use the words proof or prove, usually evidence or provides evidence for is more appropriate wording.
When scientists use the word fact, they mean something that has been observed and confirmed repeatedly, to the point that we accept it as true; however, even when it has been observed hundreds or even thousands of times, it has still not been considered proven!
Theory, hypothesis, and model
As we went through the scientific method demonstration in Section 2.1, you may have noticed that we tried to stay skeptical about our conclusions. Because of this, and because we want to be very precise about how sure we are, some words are used differently in everyday speech than they are used in scientific discourse.
For example, in everyday usage, theory might mean a hunch, idea, or speculation, but in scientific writing, theory means a set of hypotheses about the cause of some event or phenomenon that have been scientifically tested. In some cases, a scientific theory might still be under debate, but in other cases, it might be generally accepted by the scientific community, although ultimately unprovable.
In everyday speech, a hypothesis might mean any guess, but in scientific writing, it means an educated guess or an informed prediction, based on observation of data.
When scientists are trying to describe how a complex system works, they might make a series of hypotheses known as a model. For example, Figure 1 shows a model of a carbon atom. This is not what a carbon atom actually looks like if you look at it through a very powerful microscope. Instead, it is a schematic representation of the parts of a carbon atom and their relationships to each other.
In this textbook, we will create and test models of language known as grammars. They will also be schematic representations of the structure of language, rather than a “picture” of what is happening in our brains.
Significant
In everyday speech, significant just means important. However, in scientific writing, significant is short for statistically significant, which means that there is at least a 95 percent chance that, if you repeat the experiment, you will get results that are the same or more extreme results. In other words, there is a five percent chance or less that your results were a fluke due to random chance. This value is known as the p-value, and the 95% threshold is often described in decimals as p-value ≤ 0.05 ‘a p-value less than or equal to 0.05’.
To avoid confusion, it is best to reserve the word significant for its statistical meaning in scientific writing. Instead, you can use words like crucial, important, or critical.
Clearly, obvious, and without doubt
Sometimes writers will write that something is clearly the case, or that an argument is obvious, or that we can know something without doubt. Even experienced writers do this! Unfortunately, if something is obvious or clear to you, it does not mean it is obvious or clear to everyone. It can be very frustrating as a reader when an author says something is obvious instead of explaining it. If it is so clear and obvious, then it should be easy for you to take a few lines and explain it!
Writing anxiety
- Start early and break up the project into small pieces. Perhaps your goal for one day is just to find a research paper, and you will read it another day. Write an outline of your paper on a different day than you start writing.
- Make a more manageable goal. If it feels overwhelming to write 200 words, make the goal to write just 100 words that day. Some days, just writing one word might be a good goal. Often, once you get started, you might get going and write more than your goal, which feels really good! But if not, even a small amount of writing every day can give you lots of momentum.
- Don’t worry about being perfect. Just try to start writing. You can come back and edit it later, but it is easier to edit something than nothing.
- Find a format or a genre that is less scary to you, like an email to a loved one or a list. Use that writing to start, and then edit it into formal writing later.
- If you’re stuck, write about why you’re stuck.
- Record yourself describing your paper out loud, then use speech-to-text to get a first draft.
- Meet up with friends or classmates to work independently alongside each other. Turn off your Wi-Fi and focus on just writing for an hour. Having someone else who is expecting you to show up at a specific time and write can help you avoid procrastination.
Key takeaways
- Experimental linguistics papers follow a formulaic Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion structure, but most papers in morphosyntax present the data and the analysis interwoven together throughout the body of the paper. Since the structure is not formulaic, most authors give an overview of the structure of the paper at the end of the introduction.
- In the introduction of your paper, you should clearly state your main claim, explain why your paper matters, and outline the evidence you will use to support your main claim. There should be no surprise reveals in the conclusion!
- Your conclusion should restate most of the information you gave in the introduction.
- The best papers explain complex ideas in the simplest language possible, without simplifying the ideas.
- Be careful about your word choice in scientific writing. For example, the word proof should be reserved for logical proofs, and the word significant should be reserved for statistical significance.
Check yourself!
References and further resources
For students
Batchelor, LaRoyce. 2024. Growing a writing practice: Non-extractive writing. Pressbooks. https://pressbooks.openedmb.ca/nonextractivewriting/
🔍📑 Macaulay, Monica. 2011. Surviving linguistics: A guide for graduate students, 2nd edition. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Rohrer, Julia. 2024. Writing about technical topics in an accessible manner. The 100% CI. https://www.the100.ci/2024/12/01/writing-about-technical-topics-in-an-accessible-manner/
Sources for examples
Alhailawani, Mohammad. 2023 The syntax of silent directional prepositions in Jordanian Arabic. Canadian Journal of Linguistics. 68 (2): 229–249.
A scientific model is a representation of a system, an organism, a process, or a phenomenon.
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