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lang-theory-building

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Use when turning a linguistic pattern into a theoretically grounded claim for a Language (LSA) manuscript — an analysis with explicit assumptions, observable predictions, and engagement across competing frameworks rather than inside one formalism. Structures the argument; it does not gloss data or run the statistics.

Language-Linguistic-Society-Skills/skills/lang-theory-building/SKILL.md

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# Theory & Analysis Building (lang-theory-building)

At *Language* the analysis is the contribution. A glossed pattern, a corpus trend, or an experimental
effect is not a *Language* paper until it is attached to an **explicit account** — what the data are a
*case of*, what the analysis predicts, and how it fares against rival analyses. The journal's defining
demand is **theoretical grounding without framework parochialism**: state your assumptions, but engage
the alternatives a reader from another tradition would raise.

## When to trigger

- The data are solid but the "so what for linguistic theory" is thin
- A reader called the paper "descriptive," "stipulative," or "framework-internal"
- You need to make the analysis's predictions explicit and testable
- Fieldwork or corpus work whose theoretical claim is implicit and needs surfacing
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