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Abstract

In this commentary, we discuss the limitations of linguistic judgements by comparingthem to a variety of other empirical data types. In particular, we show that judge-ments are inherently multimensional in that they incorporate a range of linguisticand extra-linguistic influences, which cannot be teased apart by only consideringthe final judgement itself. Judgements of the gradient and time-insensitive typetherefore give rise to the same interpretation problems as those faced by introspec-tion. Thus, while we agree with Featherston that an improvement of data replicabil-ity in theoretical linguistics is highly desirable, we disagree with his claim that gra-dient judgements can provide significantly more grammatically-relevant informationthan other types of empirical data.