scholarly journals Teoria gerativa: contexto histórico e perspectivas

2018 ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Gisely Gonçalves De Castro
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Syntactic Structures

Este artigo fornece um percurso histórico do empreendimento gerativo, desde o seu surgimento até os desenvolvimentos recentes do Programa Minimalista. O artigo objetiva prover um levantamento compreensivo do campo da Teoria Gerativa e explorar perspectivas para pesquisas futuras. Os fundamentos no qual o presente trabalho se apoia compreendem os textos precursores das diferentes abordagens gerativas: Syntactic Structures (CHOMSKY, 1957), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (CHOMSKY, 1965), Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar (JACKENDOFF, 1972), Lectures on Government and Binding (CHOMSKY, 1981) e Minimalist Program (CHOMSKY, 1995). Ao final do percurso, indicam-se três perspectivas para as pesquisas de base gerativa: a cooperação interdisciplinar para o estudo da FL, a redução da aparente complexidade da GU e a compreensão dos sistemas que interagem com a linguagem.

The Concept of Explanatory Adequacy

2016 ◽  
pp. 96-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Rizzi
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Parametric Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
Explanatory Adequacy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

This chapter illustrates the technical notion of ‘explanatory adequacy’ in the context of the other forms of empirical adequacy envisaged in the history of generative grammar: an analysis of a linguistic phenomenon is said to meet ‘explanatory adequacy’ when it comes with a reasonable account of how the phenomenon is acquired by the language learner. It discusses the relevance of arguments from the poverty of the stimulus, which bear on the complexity of the task that every language learner successfully accomplishes, and therefore define critical cases for evaluating the explanatory adequacy of a linguistic analysis. After illustrating the impact that parametric models had on the possibility of achieving explanatory adequacy on a large scale, the chapter addresses the role that explanatory adequacy plays in the context of the Minimalist Program, and the interplay that the concept has with the further explanation ‘beyond explanatory adequacy’ that minimalist analysis seeks.

‘Virtual conceptual necessity’, feature-dissociation and the Saussurian legacy in generative grammar

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
NOEL BURTON-ROBERTS ◽  
GEOFFREY POOLE
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Architecture ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Interface Property ◽  
Linguistic Sign ◽  
Conceptual Necessity

This paper is a critique of two foundational assumptions of generative work culminating in the Minimalist Program: the assumption that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, language has a ‘double-interface property’ and the related assumption that phonology has a realizational function with respect to syntax-semantics. The issues are broached through a critique of Holmberg's (2000) analysis of Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic. We show that, although empirically motivated, and although based on the double-interface assumption, this analysis is incompatible with that assumption and with the notion of (phonological) realization. Independently of Stylistic Fronting, we argue that the double-interface assumption is a problematic legacy of Saussure's conception of the linguistic sign and that, conceptually, it is neither explanatory nor necessary. The Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2000) develops a Peircian conception of the relation between sound and meaning that breaks with the Saussurian tradition, though in a way consistent with minimalist goals. Other superficially similar approaches (Lexeme–Morpheme Base Morphology, Distributed Morphology, Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture) are discussed; it is argued that they, too, perpetuate aspects of Saussurian thought.

scholarly journals Syntactic Structures: formal considerations 60 years later

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Howard Lasnik
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Technical Details

Chomsky (1955), The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (henceforth LSLT), laid out in great detail the formal foundations for a rigorous new way of looking at language scientifcally, transformational generative grammar. This awesome accomplishment was announced to the world in Chomsky (1957), Syntactic Structures (henceforth SS), a publication that revolutionized the feld, or really, created a new feld. Needless to say, syntactic theory has undergone vast changes since then, but certain fundamental ideas, and even a few technical details, persist. In this article, I will briefly discuss some instances of each sort.

scholarly journals The Reception of Early Transformational Grammar in Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-16
Author(s):  
Frederick J. Newmeyer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Transformational Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Widespread Agreement ◽  
Early Success ◽  
The Uk

The early success in the United States of Chomsky’s book Syntactic Structures and the theory of transformational-generative grammar that it introduced raises the question of the reception of the theory in other countries. Looking at Europe, there is no overarching generalisation. In some countries (the UK, the Netherlands) the theory enjoyed a great success, in others a moderate success, at least for a time (France, Germany), and in other countries very little success (Italy, Spain). Nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that European contributions to the theory have been among the most important.

scholarly journals Levels of Representation and Semantic Interpretation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-15
Author(s):  
Howard Lasnik
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Standard Theory ◽  
Important Concern ◽  
Sentence Form ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Syntactic Derivation ◽  
Anaphoric Relations

The nature of the relationship between sentence form and meaning has been an important concern in generative grammar from the inception of the program. Chomsky (1955) raised the question of whether transformations preserve meaning. The suggested answer was negative at that time, and the locus of interpretation was the T-marker, the entire derivational history. In the standard theory of Chomsky (1965), it was proposed, based on work of Katz, Fodor, and Postal, that Deep Structure, a level newly proposed in that work, is the locus of semantic interpretation, though it was acknowledged that quantifiers raise certain difficulties. Those difficulties, along with similar ones involving anaphoric relations, led to the Extended Standard Theory, where Deep and Surface Structure jointly input interpretation, and soon, with the advent of traces, Surface Structure alone. In subsequent models within the GB framework, the derived syntactic level of LF becomes the sole locus of interpretation. Finally, in more recent Minimalist Chomskyan work, there is argued to be no one level of LF; rather, semantic interpretation is interspersed among cyclic steps of the syntactic derivation, reminiscent of the LSLT proposal, though more restricted, and very similar to proposals of Jackendoff and Lasnik in the 1970's. I will try to sort through the motivations for these changes, focusing especially on the problem of quantifier interpretation.

Movement and Control

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Hornstein
Keyword(s):  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
Obligatory Control ◽  
And Control

Since the earliest days of generative grammar, control has been distinguished from raising: the latter the product of movement operations, the former the result of construal processes relating a PRO to an antecedent. This article argues that obligatory control structures are also formed by movement. Minimalism makes this approach viable by removing D-Structure as a grammatical level. Implementing the suggestion, however, requires eliminating the last vestiges of D-Structure still extant in Chomsky's (1995) version of the Minimalist Program. In particular, it requires dispensing with the θ-Criterion and adopting the view that θ-roles are featurelike in being able to license movement.

scholarly journals A Study on the Garden Path Phenomenon from the Perspective of Generative Grammar

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haojie Li ◽  
Xiangkun Sheng
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Biological Object ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
The Past ◽  
Active Memory

Studies in the past mainly focus on the garden path phenomenon from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics. The adequacies of their explanations are different, but these theories are imperfect. This paper discusses the garden path phenomenon from the perspective of generative grammar. The author holds that the θ-attachment principle can analyze the reason of partial ambiguity of the garden path phenomenon effectively and the garden path phenomenon provides evidence for derivation by phase under the framework of MP in generative grammar. People can clarify the structure of the garden path phenomenon succinctly and enhance the understanding of language mechanism through the analysis of them from the perspective of generative grammar. The faculty of language, which is the biological object, must abide by organism operation law as well. The memories of human beings are limited and cannot load too many syntactic structures at one time. As a result, the faculty of language can simply deal with a limited structure at a time. Only the limited amount of structural information can be accommodated in the active memory and phased spelling can reduce the memory load.

Semantics in generative grammar

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-185
Author(s):  
Enrico Cipriani
Keyword(s):  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Minimalist Approach

Abstract I provide a critical survey of the role that semantics took in the several models of generative grammar, since the 1950s until the Minimalist Program. I distinguish four different periods. In the first section, I focus on the role of formal semantics in generative grammar until the 1970s. In Section 2 I present the period of linguistic wars, when the role of semantics in linguistic theory became a crucial topic of debate. In Section 3 I focus on the formulation of conditions on transformations and Binding Theory in the 1970s and 1980s, while in the last Section I discuss the role of semantics in the minimalist approach. In this section, I also propose a semantically-based model of generative grammar, which fully endorses minimalism and Chomsky’s later position concerning the primary role of the semantic interface in the Universal Grammar modelization (Strong Minimalist Thesis). In the Discussion, I point out some theoretical problems deriving from Chomsky’s internalist interpretation of model-theoretic semantics.

Minimalist Parsing

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Minimalist Program ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Formal Grammar ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Computer Scientists

This book is the first dedicated to linguistic parsing—the processing of natural language according to the rules of a formal grammar—in the minimalist framework. While the Minimalist Program has been at the forefront of generative grammar for several decades, it often remains inaccessible to computer scientists and others in adjacent fields. In particular, minimalism reveals a surprising paradox: human language is simpler than we thought, and yet it cannot be processed by the machinery used by computer scientists. In this volume, experts in the field show how to resolve this apparent paradox, and how to turn Chomsky’s abstract theories into working computer programs that can process sentences or make predictions about the time course of brain activity when dealing with language. The book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in formal syntax, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computer science.

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