English and Linguistics

    We research syntax and semantics in light of a theory known as generative grammar, which was advocated by the American linguist Noam Chomsky.  The theory of generative grammar is applied to various languages, and the primary focus of our research is English and Japanese.  The syntactic/semantic research within the framework of generative grammar focuses on the intuition that native speakers have for their native languages.  To give you an example of a speaker's intuition, let us take a look at the following Japanese sentence: 

(1) Singo-o musi-sita jitensya-to takusi-ga syototsu-sita.

Native speakers of Japanese have the intuition that the sentence (1) is ambiguous between the two readings: 'A cyclist who ignored a traffic light collided with a taxi,' and 'A bicycle and a taxi ran a red light and collided.'  Now, let's try translating this Japanese sentence into English using Google Translate.

(2) A bicycle that ran a red light collided with a taxi.

The translation algorithm made some judgment and accurately translated the Japanese sentence into English. 
    The question is, what kind of judgement did it make and what the native speakers of Japanese know ituitively.
    Our research involves observing and analyzing the intuitions of native speakers, which allows us to investigate what sort of knowledge these speakers have of their native languages.  The focus of generative grammar is the knowledge of language that humans possess, and this knowledge resides in our mind/brain.  It therefore follows that the linguistic research is a branch of natural science.  Let's learn more about our mind and natural world through linguistics!