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Anderson, John M. 2005. the Non-Autonomy of Syntax

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Anderson, John M. 2005. the Non-Autonomy of Syntax The non-autonomy of syntax John M. Anderson In: Folia Linguistica 39 (2005), 223-250. 223 The Non-autonomy of Syntax John M. Anderson Abstract Structuralism sought to introduce various kinds of autonomy into the study of language, in- cluding the autonomy of that study itself.* The basis for this was the insistence on categorial autonomy, whereby categories are identifi ed language-internally (whether in a particular lan- guage or in language). In relation to phonology, categorial autonomy is tempered by grounding: the categories correlate (at least prototypically) with substance, phonetic properties. This is manifested in the idea of ‘natural classes’ in generative phonology. Usually, however, in more modern grammars, despite some dissent, no such grounding (in meaning) has been attributed to syntax. This attitude culminates in the thesis of the ‘autonomy of syntax’ which was put forward in transformational-generative grammar. In what follows here it is argued that the consequences of this are very unfortunate. Distribution alone is insuffi cient to determine the identity of cat- egories; what is relevant is the distribution of the prototypical members of the category, where prototypicality is notionally defi ned. Prototypical nouns, for instance, denote concrete, discrete, stable entities. Syntax, as well as phonology, is grounded. Groundedness ensures that only the prototypical behaviour of semantically prototypical members of a category determines its basic syntax; and this syntax refl ects the semantic properties. Groundedness fi lters out potential syntac- tic analyses that are incompatible with this. For instance, given the diverse semantic characters of prototypical nouns and verbs, groundedness predicts that the X-bar theory of syntactic structure, which attributes parallel projections to lexical categories, is false. Consideration of the syntax of nouns and verbs confi rms that this is indeed the case. The attribution to syntax of categorial autonomy without grounding should be abandoned. 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