This review considers Semantic Syntax and Slavic Transformational Syntax particularly in the light of their contributions to the theory of grammar. Semantic Syntax is shown to have a polemical bias against the Aspects model and toward generative semantics. Its editor's position in the constellation of semantic logicians is defined; pro-Chomskian objections to the logical-cognitive semantic theory are advanced. Slavic Transformational Syntax is comprised of essays with a wide range of theoretical stances; the insights of the radical case grammar of James (...) Miller are compared with those of Semantic Syntax. Remarks on deixis by Richard Brecht are discussed in relationship to semantic-logic approaches. Certain similarities of Jakobsonian functionalism and generative semantics are discussed. (shrink)

A. Le contenu du livre de M.S.: § 1. Introduction - § 2. Des représentations phonologiques aux représentations phonétiques du grec ancien - § 3. Les conventions de marquage - § 4. Les règles de structure morphématique - § 5. Les règles d'accentuation - § 6. Le dernier chapitre. B. Discussion du livre de M.S.: § 7. Jugement général sur le travail de M.S. - § 8. La règle de l'affaiblissement des fricatives - § 9. La règle de la fricativisation (...) et celle de la chute des obstruantes - § 10. La règle de la suppression des glides - § 11. La règle de l'assimilation des nasales et celle de la chute des nasales - § 12. Les règles relatives à consonne +y - § 13. La règle du dévoisement de r et celle de la gémination de r; l'augment et le redoublement - § 14. La règle des voyelles basses - § 15. Les règles relatives à la contraction - § 16. La règle de l'abrégement - § 17. Les règles d'accentuation - § 18. Observations ultérieures - § 19. Conclusion. (shrink)

Linguists have habitually phrased their accounts of language knowledge as sound/meaning correspondences about which no mention need be made of differences that might exist between knowledge of how to analyze input versus knowledge of how to construct output . However, evidence from many sources increasingly indicates that the dissimilarities between language as comprehension versus language as production are so profound that they nullify attempts to describe language in a 'non-directional' manner, 'neutral' with respect to interpretive versus expressive functions. A two-component (...) model of idealized linguistic performance can be devised on the basis of much past and present linguistic scholarship. Elements needed for the comprehension component are derivable from 'taxonomic' distributional analyses of phonotactics, morphosyntax, and lexical semantics, as well as from recent cognitive psychological work on 'perceptual strategies', while the production component can be formulated in terms of 'generative-semantic' and 'generative-phonological' rules recast as meaning-to-sound transformational processes. Interaction between these two components may well be the crucial determinant of the 'creative aspect of language use'. (shrink)

This paper aims at showing that the generative-semantic framework is not essential to the proposal in H.J. Verkuyl On the Compositional Nature of the Aspects Reidel:Dordrecht 1972. Compositionality can be shown to be neutral as to the then-difference between generative-semantic and the interpretive-semantic branch of transformational grammar.

In evaluating the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, it is necessary to avoid using terms in such a way as to empty the Hypothesis of empirical content; it is also necessary to separate related but distinct issues. There is no reason to accept any strong version of the Hypothesis when this is understood to pertain to differences in cognition due to non-universal aspects of language structure. Generative grammarians have been led by their orientation and findings to reject the Hypothesis, but their ideas (...) on the relation between language and thought have often been confused and burdened by gratuitous assumptions. It is argued that 'semantic representations', the semantic objects determined by linguistic principles, cannot be equated with the primary structures manipulated in cognition, termed 'conceptual structures'. It is further argued, with lexical and grammatical examples from various languages, that semantic representations are not universal, even granted essential uniformity of cognition for all speakers and the viability of an informal notion of semantic equivalence between sentences. Semantic representations are not neutral characterizations of conceived situations; rather they portray situations through various 'images', so that the study of semantic representations cannot be divorced from the general problem of imagery and figurative language. One kind of syntactic change involves reanalysis of semantic representations, shifting the image they embody from one type to another. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of an experiment which demonstrates free variation at the grammatical level for the class of English verbs with both a regular and an irregular preterit form . The variables tested were: the internal vowel of the verb; its ablaut pattern; its final consonant; the person and number of the preceding NP; the transitivity function of the verb; the age and sex of the subject; the degree of formality of the testing context. None of these variables (...) correlated with the past tense forms used. Thus, none of the formalizations in the literature, such as squishes or variable rules, apply to these data. Even if they could, the co-existence of multiple forms within the head of a single speaker must still be accounted for. Such a theoretical construct is developed: muzziness. Muzziness is a continuation, in the adult life of the speaker, of hypotheses formed and eventually rejected when he first acquired his language. The relative frequency with which a given speaker employs variant forms, such as LEAPED and LEAPT, can be correlated with the sequence and time span in which he originally acquired the relevant rules. (shrink)

Constructions having the surface form NP be ADJ enough to VP are examined. It is shown that when ADJ in this construction belongs to a small class of adjectives including lucky or to a larger class including wise, a structural ambiguity appears in the complement of enough which is related to the distinction between implied and non-implied complements made in Karttunen . The underlying syntactic structure of NP be ADJ enough to VP when ADJ is lucky or wise is examined (...) and the ambiguity in the complement of enough is explained through a generalization of syntactic properties of implied complements. The analysis proposed depends crucially on the use of complex semantic features to relate syntactic structures which are not derivable from one another transformationally. Hence it represents a certain innovation in syntactic theory. (shrink)

It appears that both English and French contain a mixture of ergative and transitive verbal constructions. How useful is reference to a dual-structure model of syntax in determining the bias of a particular language? Certain verbal constructions in English and French could be generated from either transitive or ergative deep structures; we must therefore turn to other criteria - syntactic cohesion and predominant constituent structures in 'surface structure' - for a non-arbitrary - and adequate - decision.