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On the coherence of syntactic descriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

P. W. Culicover
P. W. Culicover
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine
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Extract

A sentiment which is expressed in a number of recent works in linguistics, e.g. Emonds (1970) and Kisseberth (1970) is that there are certain generalizations about languages which cannot be captured by devices already found in linguistic theory, such as rule ordering and the various collapsing conventions (cf. Chomsky & Halle, 1968). In this paper I will present evidence which suggests that there are generalizations about languages which are not capturable even by a linguistic theory which includes a number of these recent plausible revisions. I will also give an indication of how one might go about capturing these generalizations, given the assumption that they are not spurious ones.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 35 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

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