DOCSLIB.ORG

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax 110 n 1 1 P4RNT RP.SIIM ED 030 113 AL 001 969 By -Schank. Roger C. Linguistics from a Conceptual Viewpoint(Aspects of Aspects of a Theory of Syqtax). Stanford'Univ.. Calif. Spons Agency -Department of Defense, Washington. D.C. Advanced Research-Pro;ectsAgency.; National Inst. of Mental Health (DHEW), Bethesda, Md. Report No-MEMO -AI -88 Pub Date 21 Apr 69 Note -23p. EDRS Price MF -$0.25 HC -$1.25 Descriptors-Child Language. Cognitive ProCesses, Computational Linguistics,*Concept Formation, *Language Universals. *Linguistic Competence, Linguistic Performance. *LinguisticTheory. Models. Semantics, Syntax, *Transformation Generative Grammar Identifiers-*Aspects Of The Theory 'Of *Syntax. Chomsky Noam. ConceptualParser. Stanford Artificial Inteliigence Project . Some of the assertions made by Chomsky in "Aspectsof the Theory of Syntax" are considered.In particular. the" ..notion of a "competence:" model inlinguistics is criticized. Formal postulates for a *Conceptually-basedlinguistic theory are presented. (Author/JD) April 21, 1969 STANFORD ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE PROJECT MEMO AI-88 WELFARE U.S. DEPARTMENT OFHEALTH, EDUCATION & OFFICE OF EDUCATION RECEIVED FROM THE THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEENREPRODUCED EXACTLY AS POINTS OF VIEW OROPINIONS PERSON OR ORGANIZATIONORIGINATING IT. REPRESENT OFFICIM. OFFICEOF EDUCATION STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY POSITION OR POLICY. Linguistics from a Conceptual Viewpoint (Aspects of Apects of a Theory ofSyntax) by Roger C. Schank Theory ABSTRACT: Some of the assertions madeby Chomsky in AspecIs_of the of Syntax are considered. In particular, the notion of a competence' model in linguistics iscriticized. Formal pos- tulates for a conceptually-basedlinguistic theory are presented. This research is supported by GrantPHS MH 06645-07 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and(in part) by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Office ofthe Secretary of Defense(SD-183). AL001969 Linguistics from a Conceptual Viewpoint (Aspects of Aspects of a Theory of Syntax) 1. Although linguistics is often referred to as the 'science of language', it has been usual for linguists to resist this label and its concomitant expectations.With the exception of the attempts of Bloch (19)48) and Bloomfield (1926) at establishing postulates for language, the formaliza- tion that is often present in a science was difficult to find before 1957. With the advent of transformational generative grammar however, the direction of the bulk of linguistic research changed considerably. Linguists who are in the transformational camp tend to be more concerned with precision and formalization than was common in the past. It is perhaps enlightening to attempt to discover just how valid the assumptions that have led to the present conception of transformational grammar are; and, if they are not valid, agood question is just what assump- tions might be considered valid. Initially, transformational theory dealt only with kernelsand transforms. The kernels were the output of the PSG and certain obligatory transformations. Thus a transformational grammar was simply a specification of the permutations involved in correcting the output of a PSG. This system was still used until itbecame clear that it was insufficient to handle all the complexities involved in natural language. Bach (1964) stated that 'The minimal requirement that we can place on a theory about a particularlanguage is that it specify or predict all and only the sentences of the language'. Until this time, these were precisely the requirements that were placed on a transformational grammar. Hawever, two important problems resulted from this view ofwhat a linguistic theory was to accomplish. The first was that the systom of phrase structure gram- mar and the transformationsthat were added simply did not account for all the sentences of English. The second problem is that the system As it stood could not be extended to other languages without completel.y revampingboth components in such a way that the two grammarswould be very dissimilar. This clearly is in contradiction to a fact of language that we know verywell.. Namely, than any baby possesses the mechanisms to learn any language andthat therefore, there must be some similarity between languages. Furthermore, this similarity should pervade the grammars of different languagessuch that things like translatability can be explained. Thus it appeared obvious that an important step towards solving both the first and second problems would be the positing of aUniversal grammar that would hold forall languages and a particular grammar for each language. Therefore, since the framework was alraady available, the phrase .01.1.04601* r s I structure component began tobe utilized as the basis for auniversal base component. (As Robinson [1968] points out this was arelatively arbitrary decision.) At this pointChomsky's AsEstsof the_l_y_lheor c_layr._IS.2.x appeared. , L - ......MW down the 'mainbackground 2. In Chapter I ofAspects, Chomsky sets examine some assumptions' of transformationaltheory. It is worthwhile to of these assumptionsin detail. assumption that hemakes is The first and perhapsmost important (the speaker-hearer'sknow- the 'fundamentaldistinction between competence (the actual use of languagein con- ledge of hislanguage) and performance cretesituations) [p.4] that he sets up. performance provides for This distinction betweencompetence and make their statementsabout transformationalists theplatform from which to discussion of what a'performance' transformations. Chomsky includes in his limitations, inattention,distraction model should do,factors such as memory 'competence' the formal- and non-linguisticknowledge. He thus leaves for speaker-hearer's know- ization of linguistic processesrepresentative of the ledge of the language. however. It is This relegation ofcompetence makes abasic mistake of linguistic know- necessary todifferentiate theproblem of formalization from the simulationof linguistic ledge and processes,i.e., competence, and cannot be labeled as knowledge and processes. This simulation is not There is a differencebetween the what Chomsky wouldcall 'performance'. simulation of actualverbal simulation of knowledgeand processes and the Chomsky does, of theideal behavior. It is here that wemust speak, as speaker-hearer is notinattentive or dis- speaker-hearer. Clearly the ideal and non-linguisticknow- tracted. He does howeverhave memory limitations what must be simulated as aninclusive part of ledge. This is certainly which Chomsky linguistic theory. The kind of theoryof 'performance' of future to which Chomskyrelegates it. speaks may well be inthe far distant is not so far off. It would However, a theory ofsimulative performance seem very reasonablethat the possibility of the construction of alinguistic theory that both accounts for the dataand does this in such a way as to appear to be consonantwith the human method for doing so, is not so remote. Clearly, such a theory must deal withnon-linguistic knowledge and problems of human memory as well as theprdblems that Chomsky designates as'competence'. Thus, it seems that the distinctionbetween competence and performance is a contrived one at best. In particular, after elimination of someGI the be- havioristic problems such as distraction, we canexpect to find a linguistic theory that is neither one of'competence' or 'performance' but something in between and therefore partiallyinclusive of both. On Page 139 Chomsky states: Thus it seems absurd to suppose thatthe speaker first forms a generalizedPhrase-marker by base rules and then tests itfor well-formedness by applying transformationalrules to see if it gives, finally, a well-formed sentence. But this absurdity is simply a corollary to the deeperabsurdity of regarding the sys- tem of generative rules as apoint-by-point model for the actual construction of a sentence by aspeaker. The system presented in a theoryof simulativr, performance, on the other hand, would be an attempt atformulating a system of rules that are of a sentence by a speaker. a point-by-pointmodel for the actual construction Furthermore, this system should be apoint-by-point model for theactual analysis of a sentence by a hearer.These aims even if they areattainable would be largely unverifiable exceptby the use of computers assimulative devices. On page 141 Chomsky.further statesthat: 6 The grammar does not, initself, provide any sensible procedure for finding the deepstructure of a given sentence, or for producing a given sentence,just as it provides nosensible procedure for finding aparaphrase to a given sentence. It merely defines these tasks in a precise way. A performance model must certainly incorporate a grammar;it is not to be confusedwith a grammar. Thus it would be wise totake the notion of asimulative perfor- and mance model asbeing somewhere betweenChomsky's notion of competence performance. Perhaps the notionof grammar too, shouldlie somewhere between Chomsky's notion of a grammar andthe incorporation of a grammar. Chomsky describes a grammarof a language as'a description of the and calls this a'genera- ideal speaker-hearer'sintrinsic competencev[p.4] 'generative grammar' tive grammar'. It is reasonable toconsider whether a describing what Chomsky in a large sense mightalso concern itself with calls 'competence', but in a wayin which the idealspeaker-hearer does so; considerations as the speaker- in particular withoutexcluding such important hearer's knowledge of theworld. Now it is possible toredefine the notion of a'fully adequate
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Empirical Base of Linguistics: Grammaticality Judgments and Linguistic Methodology
    UCLA UCLA Previously Published Works Title The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05b2s4wg ISBN 978-3946234043 Author Schütze, Carson T Publication Date 2016-02-01 DOI 10.17169/langsci.b89.101 Data Availability The data associated with this publication are managed by: Language Science Press, Berlin Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The empirical base of linguistics Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Carson T. Schütze language Classics in Linguistics 2 science press Classics in Linguistics Chief Editors: Martin Haspelmath, Stefan Müller In this series: 1. Lehmann, Christian. Thoughts on grammaticalization 2. Schütze, Carson T. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology 3. Bickerton, Derek. Roots of language ISSN: 2366-374X The empirical base of linguistics Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology Carson T. Schütze language science press Carson T. Schütze. 2019. The empirical base of linguistics: Grammaticality judgments and linguistic methodology (Classics in Linguistics 2). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/89 © 2019, Carson T. Schütze Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-946234-02-9 (Digital) 978-3-946234-03-6 (Hardcover) 978-3-946234-04-3 (Softcover) 978-1-523743-32-2
    [Show full text]
  • Linguistic Competence
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies Nebraska Academy of Sciences 1983 Linguistic Competence John Tienson University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tnas Part of the Life Sciences Commons Tienson, John, "Linguistic Competence" (1983). Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societies. 259. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tnas/259 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Nebraska Academy of Sciences at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences and Affiliated Societiesy b an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 1983. Transactions of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences, XI:99-104. LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE John Tienson Department of Philosophy University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0321 The notion of linguistic competence as a cognitive system that essential to the notion. This will make clear that Chomsky produces knowledge not antecedently present in the mind of the sub­ should not have said that a theory of competence is an ideali­ ject, e.g., knowledge of grammatical relations in response to certain zation, and that there is no reason to say that a speaker knows stimuli is an important contribution to philosophical understanding of linguistics, and of cognitive psychology in general. This notion has not the rules of the grammar. been as well received as it should have been, in part because of certain false things that have been said about it.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Irrelevance of Transformational Grammar to Second Language Pedagogy
    ON THE IRRELEVANCE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR TO SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY John T. Lamendella The University of Michigan Many scholars view transformational grammar as an attempt to represent the structure of linguistic knowledge in the mind and seek to apply transformational descriptions of languages to the de- velopment of second language teaching materials. It will be claimed in this paper that it is a mistake to look to transformational gram- mar or any other theory of linguistic description to provide the theoretical basis for either second language pedagogy or a theory of language acquisition. One may well wish to describe the ab- stract or logical structure of a language by constructing a trans- formational grammar which generates the set of sentences identi- fied with that language. However, this attempt should not be con- fused with an attempt to understand the cognitive structures and processes involved in knowing or using a language. It is a cogni- tive theory of language within the field of psycholinguistics rather than a theory of linguistic description which should underlie lan- guage teaching materials. A great deal of effort has been expended in the attempt to demonstrate the potential contributions of the field of descriptive linguistics to the teaching of second languages and, since the theory of transformational grammar has become the dominant theory in the field of linguistics, it is not surprising that applied linguists have sought to apply transformational grammar to gain new in- sights into the teaching of second languages. It will be claimed in this paper that it is a mistake to look to transformational grammar or any other theory of linguistic description to provide the theoretical basis for either second language pedagogy or a theory of language acquisition.
    [Show full text]
  • Language and Psychology. New York: Wiley, 1970
    Some psychological aspects of linguistic data W. J. M. Levelt, Nijmegen In this article some aspects of the relation between linguistics and psychology are considered. It will be shown that some present day linguistic practices are dubious from the psychological point of view (section 4), whereas at the same time the psy­ chological relevance of linguistic theory is central to the transformationalists con­ ception of linguistics (section 2). But even if linguistics is given a more moderate place in the psychology of language (section 3), certain types of linguistic data, na­ mely different sorts of linguistic intuitions, deserve very careful attention in view of their psychological unreliability. Uncontrolable introspectionism should be avoi­ ded and some recommendations to this effect are made (section 5). It is especially stressed that the linguist should not rely on absolute judgment of grammaticality, but only on relative (rank order) judgments; that he should order his rules with respect to their grammatical importance; and that he should study intuitions which have a high degree of reliability, such as intuitions on cohesion. The paper is introduced by a short historical note (section 1), which out­ lines the main conceptions of the relation between psychology and linguistics during the past century and a half. 1. An historical note The views on the relations between psychology and linguistics are as diverse as-the opinions about the relation between human mind and human language. The nine­ teenth and twentieth century literature on this subject is so extensive, that any short review necessarily oversimplifies the intricate matters involved. This is especially true for the present introduction, which will confine itself to a summary indication of the three most outstanding conceptions that have been proposed during this period.
    [Show full text]
  • Types of Competence in Linguistics: a Review of Processes and Their Implications in Human Perception and Action
    DTCF Dergisi 57.1 (2017): 157-170 TYPES OF COMPETENCE IN LINGUISTICS: A REVIEW OF PROCESSES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS IN HUMAN PERCEPTION AND ACTION DİLBİLİMDE YETERLİK TÜRLERİ: SÜREÇLERİN GÖZDEN GEÇİRİLMESİ, İNSAN ALGISI VE EYLEMLERİ ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİLERİ İsmail ERTON Yrd. Doç. Dr., Atılım Üniversitesi, Fen – Edebiyat Fakültesi, Mütercim Tercümanlık Bölümü, [email protected] Abstract Scientic research and studies concerning the denition and scope of the term 'competence' have been one of the major elds within linguistic studies since the 1960s. Makale Bilgisi Research on this subject liberated linguistic studies from structural boundaries and Gönderildiği tarih: 17 Mart 2917 helped linguistics to become a multidisciplinary eld nourished especially by psychology, Kabul edildiği tarih: 4 Nisan 2017 sociology and cultural studies. This paper argues that the study of the competence types in Yayınlanma tarihi: 21 Haziran 2017 linguistics not only paved the way to a better understanding of how language is produced and perceived by language users, but also increased the language users' awareness to Article Info become more knowledgeable in cross-cultural interactions and their underlying theories. This research is particularly interested in pragmatic competence as the utmost point of Date submitted: 17 March 2017 related studies since the development of pragmatic competence embodies the skills and Date accepted: 4 April 2017 abilities to utilize the cognition and perception of the language user even in unforeseen Date published: 21 June 2017 discourses. Anahtar sözcükler Öz Yeterlik; Söylem; Dilsel Yeterlilik; 'Yeterlik' kelimesinin tanım ve kapsamını belirlemeye yönelik bilimsel araştırma ve İletişimsel Yetkinlik; Edimbilimsel çalışmalar 1960'lı yıllardan bu yana dilbilim çalışmalarının temel konularından birisi Yeterlik; İnsan Algısı; İnsan Eylemi olmuştur.
    [Show full text]
  • LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE and IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION WITHIN CONTEMPORARY COOKING a Comparative Study of the Language Use of Two British Chefs
    LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION WITHIN CONTEMPORARY COOKING A Comparative Study of the Language Use of Two British Chefs Student: Lena Ekberg Högskolan i Halmstad (Sweden) English Module C Supervisor: Stuart Foster February 2014 Ekberg 2 ABSTRACT This is a limited linguistic study that focuses on contemporary language use of two British nationals who are well-known professionals within cooking, and who perform linguistically in the writing of cookery books and in television shows. There are two linguistic foci for the study: a gender perspective and a social class perspective. The aim is to evaluate the linguistic features that are characteristic of the two subjects in relation to the research approaches and in relation to previous research from these perspectives, and to compare their respective language use from the selected material. The study also aims to explore how the language use and linguistic style of each subject may contribute to his or her identity and to the professional image marketing processes the employ. A quantitative method is used for the study of specific linguistic features and to detect the presence or absence of these features. A qualitative approach is used when discussing and commenting on how the qualitative result may have impact on, or may contribute to, individual style, identity and professional branding. The texts for the study is randomly chosen and comprises written texts in two cookery books of each individual and spoken language in one television episode, of each person, from broadcasted cookery shows. Due to the randomly selected and limited data, the study does not claim to be statistically relevant.
    [Show full text]
  • Jurisprudence and the Nature of Language: Contrasting Views of Hart and Chomsky Anon
    Washington Law Review Volume 42 Number 3 4-1-1967 Jurisprudence and the Nature of Language: Contrasting Views of Hart and Chomsky anon Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr Part of the Jurisprudence Commons, and the Law and Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation anon, Comment, Jurisprudence and the Nature of Language: Contrasting Views of Hart and Chomsky, 42 Wash. L. Rev. 847 (1967). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol42/iss3/6 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at UW Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington Law Review by an authorized editor of UW Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COMMENTS JURISPRUDENCE AND THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE: CONTRASTING VIEWS OF HART AND CHOMSKY Because much of modern philosophy has been preoccupied with some form of language analysis' and because jurists often apply phil- osophical techniques and insights when attempting to solve jurispru- dential problems, theories or views of the nature of language have considerable jurisprudential significance. The point is illustrated by the recent movement toward using the methods of "ordinary language" philosophy in the analysis of legal problems.' The pattern is not new; a roughly similar relationship is seen in positivism and its application in jurisprudence.3 The notion behind this approach is that an under- standing of the nature of language contributes to the solution of philo- sophical and jurisprudential problems. More precisely, the premise is that language and conceptual knowledge are closely related.' The premise means that the jurist must have a correct view of language if he is going to use a theory of language to suggest and support juris- prudential conclusions.
    [Show full text]
  • Performance-Compatible Competence Grammar
    Performance-Compatible Competence Grammar Ivan A. Sag and Thomas Wasow Stanford University ¡ sag,wasow ¢ @csli.stanford.edu 1 Competence and Performance Half a century ago, Noam Chomsky introduced the field of linguistics to new mathematical tools drawn largely from recursive function theory. These were exciting tools that imparted mathematical precision, perhaps for the first time in the history of Linguistics, to the enterprise of grammar construction. The cornerstone of Chomsky's new theoretical edifice, was the grammatical transformation, an analytic device which led to new insights about a vast array of empirical phenomena left unanalyzed by previous linguistic traditions. As the theory of transformations developed, so did Chomsky's conception of linguistic theory. Transformational grammar was accorded the status of a theory of idealized linguis- tic knowledge – linguistic competence, to be distinguished from the more general study of language use (including the unconscious mental processes involved in producing and compre- hending utterances), termed linguistic performance. The relation between these two notions, as Chomsky (1965:10) emphasized, is that “... investigation of performance will proceed only so far as understanding of underlying competence permits.” For all their initial descriptive success, however, linguistic transformations have proven rather intransigent. Early psycholinguistic studies based on transformational grammar sought to show a correlation between the psychological complexity of sentences and the number of transformations involved in their derivations. The initial experiments provided enough support for this `derivational theory of complexity' (DTC) that Chomsky (1968) wrote “The results show a remarkable correlation of the amount of memory and number of transformations”. But this optimism was short-lived.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction 2 Introduction Linguistics: the Scientific Study of Human Language 3 1 Linguistics: the Scientific Study of Human Language
    Linguistics: The Scientific Study of Human Language 1 Part I Introduction 2 Introduction Linguistics: The Scientific Study of Human Language 3 1 Linguistics: The Scientific Study of Human Language CHAPTER CONTENTS 1.0 Introduction 1.4 Mental Grammar, Universal Grammar, 1.1 Panini to Chomsky and After Descriptive Grammars, Teaching 1.2 Aims of Linguistic Theory Grammars, and Prescriptive Grammars 1.3 What Constitutes Knowledge of 1.5 How is Knowledge of Language Language? Grammar as the Acquired? The Logical Problem of Representation of Linguistic Child Language Acquisition Competence 1.6 How is Knowledge of Language Put 1.3.1 The lexicon to Use? Linguistic Performance 1.3.2 Morphology 1.7 ‘Doing’ Linguistics 1.3.3 Syntax 1.8 Summary 1.3.4 Semantics Further reading 1.3.5 Phonetics and phonology 1.0 Introduction Human language, that unique characteristic of our species, has been of interest throughout history. The scientific study of human language is called linguistics. A linguist, then, is not someone who speaks many lan- guages (although many linguists do); such individuals are polyglots. A linguist is a scientist who investigates human language in all its facets, its structure, its use, its history, its place in society. The form and structure of the kinds of linguistic knowledge speakers possess is the concern of theoretical linguistics. This theory of grammar – the mental representation of linguistic knowledge – is what this text- book is about. But the field of linguistics is not limited to grammatical the- ory; it includes a large number of subfields, which is true of most sciences concerned with phenomena as complex as human language.
    [Show full text]
  • Foundations of Generative Linguistics
    Acta Linguistica Academica / p. 309 / September 8, 2019 Acta Linguistica Academica Vol. 66 (2019) 3, 309–334 DOI: 10.1556/2062.2019.66.3.1 Foundations of generative linguistics Éva Dékány Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences [email protected] Abstract: This paper gives a broad overview of the ideas underlying the Chomskyan approach to linguis- tics. It identifies the main innovation of generative grammar in linguistics and clarifies some recurring misunderstandings about the language faculty, recursion and language universals. The paper also dis- cusses some of the main empirical results of generative syntax. Keywords: generative grammar; transformation; language faculty; recursion; language universal 1. Introduction This paper aims to give a broad overview of the foundations underlying the Chomskyan approach to linguistics. Instead of focusing on the technical apparatus and analytical details of either Government and Binding theory (Chomsky 1981) or the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1993; 1995), I put the spotlight on how Chomsky changed the research questions and research agenda of linguistics (section 2).1 In section 3 I clarify some stubborn misunderstandings which regularly appear about Chomskyan linguistics in the literature of competing frameworks. Section 4 is dedicated to the fields of application and data collecting methods of generative grammar. Some of the main empirical results of generative syntax are discussed in section 5. 2. Generative grammar and its relation to transformations The linguistic theory that grew out of Chomsky’s work is called generative grammar. In this context, ‘grammar’ refers to all levels of language with a structure, that is, it includes phonology, morphology and syntax as well as (compositional, non-lexical) semantics.
    [Show full text]
  • Fasold R., Connor-Linton J
    0521847680pre_pi-xvi.qxd 1/11/06 3:32 PM Page i sushil Quark11:Desktop Folder: An Introduction to Language and Linguistics This accessible new textbook is the only introduction to linguistics in which each chapter is written by an expert who teaches courses on that topic, ensuring balanced and uniformly excellent coverage of the full range of modern linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge, the text offers a clear introduction to the traditional topics of structural linguistics (theories of sound, form, meaning, and language change), and in addition provides full coverage of contextual linguistics, including separate chapters on discourse, dialect variation, language and culture, and the politics of language. There are also up-to-date separate chapters on language and the brain, computational linguistics, writing, child language acquisition, and second language learning. The breadth of the textbook makes it ideal for introductory courses on language and linguistics offered by departments of English, sociology, anthropology, and communications, as well as by linguistics departments. RALPH FASOLD is Professor Emeritus and past Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. He is the author of four books and editor or coeditor of six others. Among them are the textbooks The Sociolinguistics of Society (1984) and The Sociolinguistics of Language (1990). JEFF CONNOR-LINTON is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, where he has been Head of the Applied Linguistics Program and Department
    [Show full text]
  • Transformational Grammar and Its Organization
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 025 762 AL 001 695 B y Park, Nahm-Sheik Some Basic Assumptions in Transformational Linguistics. Pub Date 30 Jun 68 Note-21p. Journal Cit-Language Research; v4 nl Jun 30 1968 EDRS Price MF -$0.25 HC-S1.15 Descriptors-Child Language, *Deep Structure, Grammar, Linguistic Competence, LinguisticPerformance, Linguistic Theory, Stru-s-,turalAnalysis, *Surface Structure, Syntax, *Transformation Generative Grammar. *Transformation Theory (Language) The discussion throughout this paper is devoted to answering the question: What is the nature of our knowledge of language and what theoretical assumptionsdoes the answer entail for linguistic description? Discussed are--(1) what it means toknow a language, (2) the distinctionbetween linguistic competence and performance, (3) justification of the transformational model as the theory of linguistic competence,(4) rule-governedcreativityversussimpleanalogy,(5)underlying andsuperficial structures, (6) transformational grammar and its organization,(7) the theory of language and the grammar of a language, (a) the language acquisition deviceand the construction of the theory of language, (9) evaluation measure,and (10) justification of grammars. A short bibliography is appended. (DO) CI N- W\ (N.1 C=i Some Basic Assumptions in Transformational Linguistics Nahm-Sheik Park (Seoul National University) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLYAS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICEOFEDUCATION ^OSITION OR Kap. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MUNN* MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED - TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING , UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REOUIRES PERMISSIONOF THE MINN, OWNER." Language Research Vol.
    [Show full text]