Arguments for a Non-Transformational Grammar

Arguments for a Non-Transformational Grammar PDF Author: Richard A. Hudson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226357997
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
For the past decade, the dominant transformational theory of syntax has produced the most interesting insights into syntactic properties. Over the same period another theory, systemic grammar, has been developed very quietly as an alternative to the transformational model. In this work Richard A. Hudson outlines "daughter-dependency theory," which is derived from systemic grammar, and offers empirical reasons for preferring it to any version of transformational grammar. The goal of daughter-dependency theory is the same as that of Chomskyan transformational grammar—to generate syntactic structures for all (and only) syntactically well-formed sentences that would relate to both the phonological and the semantic structures of the sentences. However, unlike transformational grammars, those based on daughter-dependency theory generate a single syntactic structure for each sentence. This structure incorporates all the kinds of information that are spread, in a transformational grammar, over to a series of structures (deep, surface, and intermediate). Instead of the combination of phrase-structure rules and transformations found in transformational grammars, daughter-dependency grammars contain rules with the following functions: classification, dependency-marking, or ordering. Hudson's strong arguments for a non-transformational grammar stress the capacity of daughter-dependency theory to reflect the facts of language structure and to capture generalizations that transformational models miss. An important attraction of Hudson's theory is that the syntax is more concrete, with no abstract underlying elements. In the appendixes, the author outlines a partial grammar for English and a small lexicon and distinguishes his theory from standard dependency theory. Hudson's provocative thesis is supported by his thorough knowledge of transformational grammar.

Arguments for a Non-Transformational Grammar

Arguments for a Non-Transformational Grammar PDF Author: Richard A. Hudson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226357997
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
For the past decade, the dominant transformational theory of syntax has produced the most interesting insights into syntactic properties. Over the same period another theory, systemic grammar, has been developed very quietly as an alternative to the transformational model. In this work Richard A. Hudson outlines "daughter-dependency theory," which is derived from systemic grammar, and offers empirical reasons for preferring it to any version of transformational grammar. The goal of daughter-dependency theory is the same as that of Chomskyan transformational grammar—to generate syntactic structures for all (and only) syntactically well-formed sentences that would relate to both the phonological and the semantic structures of the sentences. However, unlike transformational grammars, those based on daughter-dependency theory generate a single syntactic structure for each sentence. This structure incorporates all the kinds of information that are spread, in a transformational grammar, over to a series of structures (deep, surface, and intermediate). Instead of the combination of phrase-structure rules and transformations found in transformational grammars, daughter-dependency grammars contain rules with the following functions: classification, dependency-marking, or ordering. Hudson's strong arguments for a non-transformational grammar stress the capacity of daughter-dependency theory to reflect the facts of language structure and to capture generalizations that transformational models miss. An important attraction of Hudson's theory is that the syntax is more concrete, with no abstract underlying elements. In the appendixes, the author outlines a partial grammar for English and a small lexicon and distinguishes his theory from standard dependency theory. Hudson's provocative thesis is supported by his thorough knowledge of transformational grammar.

Grammatical theory

Grammatical theory PDF Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961102023
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 877

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Book Description
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured. This book is a new edition of http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/25 and http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/195.

Syntactic Structures

Syntactic Structures PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3112316002
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax PDF Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354587
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1412

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Book Description
Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

Grammatical theory

Grammatical theory PDF Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3961102775
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 882

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Book Description
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured. The book is a translation of the German book Grammatiktheorie, which was published by Stauffenburg in 2010. This book is a new edition of http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/25, http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/195 and http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/255.

A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity

A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity PDF Author: Ahmad Alqassas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197554881
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Polarity sensitivity is a ubiquitous phenomenon involving expressions such as anybody, nobody, ever, never, somebody and their counterparts in other languages. These expressions belong to different classes such as negative and positive polarity, negative concord, and negative indefinites. In this book, Ahmad Alqassas proposes a unified approach to the study of this phenomenon that relies on examining the interaction between the various types of polarity sensitivity, with a particular focus on Arabic. Alqassas shows that treating this interaction is fundamental for scrutinizing their licensing conditions. Alqassas draws on data from Standard Arabic and the major regional dialects represented by Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Qatari. Through the (micro)comparative approach, Alqassas explains the distributional contrasts with a minimal set of universal syntactic operations such as Merge, Move, and Agree. He also considers a fine-grained inventory of negative formal features for polarity items and their licensors. These simple features paint a complex landscape of polarity and lead to important conclusions about syntactic computation. By engaging with the rich but under-studied landscape of Arabic polarity sensitivity, this book provides a new perspective on the syntax-semantic interface and develops a unified syntactic analysis for polarity sensitivity. These contributions have important implications for the study of Arabic and for syntactic theory more generally.

Anaphora and Conceptual Structure

Anaphora and Conceptual Structure PDF Author: Karen van Hoek
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226848945
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Karen van Hoek presents a cogent analysis of the classic problem of constraints on pronominal anaphora within the framework of Cognitive Grammar. Van Hoek proceeds from the position that grammatical structure can be characterized in terms of semantic and phonological representations, without autonomous syntactic structures or principles such as tree structures or c-command. She argues that constraints on anaphora can be explained in terms of semantic interactions between nominals and the contexts in which they are embedded. Integrating the results of previous work, Van Hoek develops a model in which some nominals function as "conceptual reference points" that dominate over stretches defined by the semantic relations among elements. When a full noun is in the domain of a reference point, coreference is ruled out, since the speaker would be sending contradictory messages about the salience of the noun's referent. With profound implications for the nature of syntax, this book will interest theoretical linguists of all persuasions.

The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis

The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis PDF Author: Jeroen van Craenenbroeck
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0198712391
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1147

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Book Description
This handbook is the first volume to provide a comprehensive, in-depth, and balanced discussion of ellipsis, a phenomena whereby expressions in natural language appear to be incomplete but are still understood. It explores fundamental questions about the workings of grammar and provides detailed case studies of inter- and intralinguistic variation.

Grammatical theory : From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches

Grammatical theory : From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches PDF Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3985540608
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 890

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Book Description
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, ConstructionGrammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.

Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches (Fifth revised edition)

Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches (Fifth revised edition) PDF Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961104026
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 889

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Book Description
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.