The last section the Appendix to Chapter 7 (which is now the only Appendix to Chapter 7) is like this: (The formatting is lost.)
In this Appendix, I discussed two more bridging hypotheses about Japanese and two more about English and provided further illustration of the role of bridging hypotheses as hypotheses about effective probes for investigating properties of FD and hence of the CS. The discussion addressed a wider context of research in which the Main-Experiments discussed in this book have been designed and conducted. In the course of the discussion, we also addressed the issue of theory-laden nature of language faculty science and the abstract nature of the research program. We cope with the theory-ladenness, as addressed in the previous subsection, by proceeding in our research by establishing and accumulating confirmed predicted schematic asymmetries. What exact significance we can assign to a given confirmed predicted schematic asymmetry in a given Main-Experiment might depend upon the hypotheses that give rise to the relevant predicted schematic asymmetry, including the bridging hypothesis in question, how the Sub-Experiments are designed and conduced, and what informant classifications we have used. But that is how we must proceed in language faculty science as an exact science. In all this, it is predicted schematic asymmetries and confirmed predicted schematic asymmetries that allows us to pursue rigorous empirical testability and that provides us with an empirical basis for our theorizing. |