Grammatical assumptions: Government-Binding theory

In order to properly investigate the nature of the relation between syntax and perception, it is necessary to begin with a discussion of the syntactic framework being assumed. I will outline two aspects of syntactic phenomena as they are treated within the GB framework: the generation of structure and the relations which exist between elements in a syntactic representation. The particular type of structure I will consider is a phrase-structure tree. Structural relations involving discontinuous dependencies will first be discussed from the derivational perspective of standard GB (Chomsky 1981). I will then turn to the representational approach of Koster (1986). As noted in Chapter 1, it is this representational form of GB which I will assume in subsequent discussion of the parser's properties (Chapter 4).

As noted above, there are many aspects of syntactic theory in general, and GB in particular, which I will gloss over or ignore. The intent of this chapter is to describe the form of syntactic knowledge in sufficient detail so that we can, in a meaningful way, address the issue of the manner in which syntactic knowledge is put to use in the perceptual process.