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O. PRELIMINARY REMARKS Initial drafts of the papers in this
collection were presented in a con ference entitled 'Views on
Phrase Structure', held at the University of Florida, Gainesville,
in March, 1989. Eleven of the twenty-three partici pants in the
conference were able to contribute to this volume. The purpose of
the conference was to explore theories of phrase structure in their
relation to other subsystems of grammar and/or systems of
nonlinguistic knowledge. Some of the grammatical subsystems which
the authors consider are theta-theory, movement, Case, and binding;
a number of papers address how the conceptual system and/or aspects
of language use may interact. Unifying the various approaches and
perspectives is an attempt to furnish hypotheses concerning prin
ciples of phrase structure with some sort of independent
justification. 1. PHRASE STRUCTURE THEORY: A BRIEF HISTORY A basic
outline for a theory of phrase structure theory is accepted by all
of the authors here; it is known as 'X-bar theory'. The concepts of
X-bar theory are expressed in some form by a number of
pre-generative linguists. For example, Bloomfield (1933) contrasted
endocentric struc tures such as noun phrases and verb phrases with
those he considered exocentric, e. g. prepositional phrases and
clauses. Jespersen (1933), while presenting a functional system of
description (in terms of 'ranks', where rank one is 'nominal', for
example), clarified the relations among the head of a phrase, its
modifier, and a phrase which modifies the modifier."
O. PRELIMINARY REMARKS Initial drafts of the papers in this
collection were presented in a con ference entitled 'Views on
Phrase Structure', held at the University of Florida, Gainesville,
in March, 1989. Eleven of the twenty-three partici pants in the
conference were able to contribute to this volume. The purpose of
the conference was to explore theories of phrase structure in their
relation to other subsystems of grammar and/or systems of
nonlinguistic knowledge. Some of the grammatical subsystems which
the authors consider are theta-theory, movement, Case, and binding;
a number of papers address how the conceptual system and/or aspects
of language use may interact. Unifying the various approaches and
perspectives is an attempt to furnish hypotheses concerning prin
ciples of phrase structure with some sort of independent
justification. 1. PHRASE STRUCTURE THEORY: A BRIEF HISTORY A basic
outline for a theory of phrase structure theory is accepted by all
of the authors here; it is known as 'X-bar theory'. The concepts of
X-bar theory are expressed in some form by a number of
pre-generative linguists. For example, Bloomfield (1933) contrasted
endocentric struc tures such as noun phrases and verb phrases with
those he considered exocentric, e. g. prepositional phrases and
clauses. Jespersen (1933), while presenting a functional system of
description (in terms of 'ranks', where rank one is 'nominal', for
example), clarified the relations among the head of a phrase, its
modifier, and a phrase which modifies the modifier."
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the
main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This
branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is
concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of
linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into
the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high
quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues.
The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from
syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to
studies of the lexicon.
This book looks at how the human brain got the capacity for
language and how language then evolved. Its four parts are
concerned with different views on the emergence of language, with
what language is, how it evolved in the human brain, and finally
how this process led to the properties of language. Part I
considers the main approaches to the subject and how far language
evolved culturally or genetically. Part II argues that language is
a system of signs and considers how these elements first came
together in the brain. Part III examines the evidence for brain
mechanisms to allow the formation of signs. Part IV shows how the
book's explanation of language origins and evolution is not only
consistent with the complex properties of languages but provides
the basis for a theory of syntax that offers insights into the
learnability of language and to the nature of constructions that
have defied decades of linguistic analysis, including including
subject-verb inversion in questions, existential constructions, and
long-distance dependencies. Denis Bouchard's outstandingly original
account will interest linguists of all persuasions as well as
cognitive scientists and others interested in the evolution of
language.
This book looks at how the human brain got the capacity for
language and how language then evolved. Its four parts are
concerned with different views on the emergence of language, with
what language is, how it evolved in the human brain, and finally
how this process led to the properties of language. Part I
considers the main approaches to the subject and how far language
evolved culturally or genetically. Part II argues that language is
a system of signs and considers how these elements first came
together in the brain. Part III examines the evidence for brain
mechanisms to allow the formation of signs. Part IV shows how the
book's explanation of language origins and evolution is not only
consistent with the complex properties of languages but provides
the basis for a theory of syntax that offers insights into the
learnability of language and to the nature of constructions that
have defied decades of linguistic analysis, including including
subject-verb inversion in questions, existential constructions, and
long-distance dependencies. Denis Bouchard's outstandingly original
account will interest linguists of all persuasions as well as
cognitive scientists and others interested in the evolution of
language.
During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have
assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the
mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols.
Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be
linguistic representations at several abstract
levels--phonological, syntactic, and semantic--and that those
representations are related by a describable system of rules.
Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally
complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar.
"The Semantics of Syntax" is an elegant and powerful analysis of
the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning
is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard
argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into
grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes
simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate
linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard
shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of
a single abstract core meaning along with background information
about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this
move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of
the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the
consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.
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