This is an introduction to the structure of sentences in human languages. It assumes no prior knowledge of linguistic theory and little of elementary grammar. It will suit students coming to syntactic theory for the first time either as graduates or undergraduates. It will also be useful for those in fields such as computational science, artificial intelligence, or cognitive psychology who need a sound knowledge of current syntactic theory.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Building on the success of the bestselling first edition, the second edition of this textbook provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the major issues in Principles and Parameters syntactic theory, including phrase structure, the lexicon, case theory, movement, and locality conditions. Includes new and extended problem sets in every chapter, all of which have been annotated for level and skill type. Features three new chapters on advanced topics including vP shells, object shells, control, gapping and ellipsis and an additional (...) chapter on advanced topics in binding. Offers a brief survey of both Lexical-Functional Grammar and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Succeeds in strengthening the reader's foundational knowledge, and prepares them for more advanced study. Supported by an instructor's manual and online resources for students and instructors, available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/carnie. (shrink)

The study of syntax is fundamental to linguistics and language study, but it is often taught solely within the framework of transformational grammar. This book is unique in several respects: it introduces the basic concepts used in the description of syntax, independently of any single model of grammar. Most grammatical models fail to deal adequately with one aspect of syntax or another, and the authors argue that an understanding of the concepts used in any full description of (...) language is crucial for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of formal grammars. Formal approaches to some of these concepts are critically examined. This book will train students, of either linguistics or language, to understand and make the best use of any grammar they encounter. Secondly, the book deals with the whole of syntax from immediate constituents and relations between sentences. It also examines concepts like subject and object, agent and patient, topic, comment and theme. Thirdly, there is a section on morphology, and a discussion of the relationship between syntax and morphology. As a book which explains, in a lucid and approachable way, why linguists have adopted certain solutions to problems and not others, this will be an invaluable introductory text. It is profusely illustrated with diagrams, and there are sets of exercises for every chapter which can be used in class, or by students working independently. This second edition has been extensively revised to take account of recent developments in syntactic studies. (shrink)

Split constructions are widespread in natural languages. The separation of the semantic restriction of a quantifier from that quantifier is a typical example of such a construction. This study addresses the problem that such discontinuous strings exhibit--namely, a number of locality constraints, including intervention effects. These are shown to follow from the interaction of a minimalist syntax with a semantics that directly assigns a model-theoretic interpretation to syntactic logical forms. The approach is shown to have wide empirical coverage and (...) a conceptual simplicity. The book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of syntax and semantics. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Seit beinahe einem Jahrhundert sind Mathematiker und Logiker mit Erfolg bemiiht, aus der Logik eine strenge Wissen­ schaft zu machen. Dieses Ziel ist in einem gewissen Sinn erreicht worden: man hat gelemt, in der Logistik mit Symbolen und Formeln ii. hnlich denen der Mathematik in strenger Weise zu operieren. Aber ein logisches Buch muB auBer den Formeln auch Zwischentext enthalten, der mit Hilfe der gewohnlichen Wort­ sprache iiber die Formeln spricht und ihren Zusammenhang kIar macht. Dieser Zwischentext laBt oft an (...) Klarheit und Exakt­ heit manches zu wiinschen ubrig. In den letzten Jahren nun hat sich bei den Logikem verschiedener Richtungen immer mehr die Einsicht entwickelt, daB dieser Zwischentext das Wesentliche an der Logik ist und daB as darauf ankommt, fUr diese Satze uber Satze eine exakte Methode zu entwickeln. Dieses Buch will die systematische Darstellung einer solchen Methode, der "logischen Syntax", geben (nahere Erlauterungen in der Einleitung, §§ 1, 2). In unserem "Wiener Kreis" und in manchen ahnlich gerich­ teten Gruppen (in Polen, Frankreich, England, USA. und ver­ einzelt sogar in Deutschland) hat sich gegenwartig die Auffassung immer deutlicher herausgebildet, daB die traditionelle meta· physische Philosophie keinen Anspruch auf Wissenschaftlichkeit machen kann. Was an der Arbeit des Philosophen wissenschaft· lich haltbar ist, besteht - soweit es nicht empirische Fragen betrifft, die der Realwissenschaft zuzuweisen sind - in logischer Analyse. Die logische Syntax will nun ein Begriffsgeb8. ude, eine Sprache liefem, mit deren Hilfe die Ergebnisse logischer Analyse exakt formulierbar sind. (shrink)

Cedric Boeckx focuses on two core components of grammar: phrase structure and locality.

W. Labov's & T. Labov's findings concerning their child grammar acquisition ("Learning the Syntax of Questions" in Recent Advances in the Psychology of Language, Campbell, R. & Smith, P. Eds, New York: Plenum Press, 1978) are interpreted in terms of different semantics of why & other wh-questions. Z. Dubiel.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A central debate in the cognitive sciences surrounds the nature of adult speakers' linguistic representations: Are they purely syntactic (a traditional and widely held view; e.g., Branigan & Pickering, ), or are they semantically structured? A recent study (Ambridge, Bidgood, Pine, Rowland, & Freudenthal, ) found support for the latter view, showing that adults' acceptability judgments of passive sentences were significantly predicted by independent semantic “affectedness” ratings designed to capture the putative semantics of the construction (e.g., Bob was pushed by (...) Wendy is rated as more acceptable than Bob was liked by Wendy, as Bob is more affected in the former). However, because English lacks a separate topicalization construction which provides an alternative means of highlighting the patient (e.g., BOB, Wendy kicked), these findings have a possible alternative explanation: that highly affected entities are more likely to be topicalized, rather than passivized per se. Here we show that, in fact, Ambridge et al.'s () finding replicates in Indonesian, a language with a topicalization construction. The present study therefore provides particularly compelling evidence that grammatical representations have semantic structure. (shrink)

The relation between linguistics and logic has been discussed in a, recent paper by Bar-Hillel} where it is argued that a disregard for workin logical syntax and semantics has caused linguists to limit themselves too narrowly in their inquiries, and to fall into several errors. In particular, Bar-Hillel asserts, they have attempted to derive relations of synonymy and so-called ‘rules of transfOI`1'Il8.tiOH,, such as the active—pussive relation, from distributional studies alone, and they have hesitated to rely on considerations of (...) meaning in linguistic analysis. No one can quarrel with the suggestion that linguists interest themselves in meaning or transformation rules, but the relevance of logical syntax and semsmticsz (at least as we now know them) to this study is very dubious. I think that a closer investigation of the assumptions and concems of logical syntax and semantics will show that the hope of applying the results which have been achieved in these fields to the solution of linguistic problems is illusory. (shrink)

This volume contains twelve chapters on the derivation of and the correlates to verb initial word order. The studies in this volume cover such widely divergent languages as Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Old Irish, Biblical Hebrew, Jakaltek, Mam, Lummi (Straits Salish), Niuean, Malagasy, Palauan, K'echi', and Zapotec, from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, including Minimalism, information structure, and sentence processing. The first book to take a crosslinguistic comparative approach to verb initial syntax, this volume provides new data to (...) some old problems anddebates and explores some innovative approaches to the derivation of verb initial order. (shrink)

Turner argues that computer programs must have purposes, that implementation is not a kind of semantics, and that computers might need to understand what they do. I respectfully disagree: Computer programs need not have purposes, implementation is a kind of semantic interpretation, and neither human computers nor computing machines need to understand what they do.

Much of the best contemporary work in the philosophy of language and content makes appeal to the theories developed in generative syntax. In particular, there is a presumption that—at some level and in some way—the structures provided by syntactic theory mesh with or support our conception of content/linguistic meaning as grounded in our first-person understanding of our communicative speech acts. This paper will suggest that there is no such tight fit. Its claim will be that, if recent generative theories (...) are on the right lines, syntactic structure provides both too much and too little to serve as the structural partner for content, at least as that notion is generally understood in philosophy. The paper will substantiate these claims by an assessment of the recent work of King, Stanley, and others. (shrink)

Available for the first time in 20 years, here is the Rudolf Carnap's famous principle of tolerance by which everyone is free to mix and match the rules of ...

It is commonly argued that the rules of language, as distinct from its semantic features, are the characteristics which most clearly distinguish language from the communication systems of other species. A number of linguists (e.g., Chomsky 1972, 1980; Pinker 1994) have suggested that the universal features of grammar (UG) are unique human adaptations showing no evolutionary continuities with any other species. However, recent summaries of the substantive features of UG are quite remarkable in the very general nature of the features (...) proposed. While the syntax of any given language can be quite complex, the specific rules vary so much between languages that the truly universal (i.e. innate) aspects of grammar are not complex at all. In fact, these features most closely resemble a set of general descriptions of our richly complex semantic cognition, and not a list of specific rules. General principles of the evolutionary process suggest that syntax is more properly understood as an emergent characteristic of the explosion of semantic complexity that occurred during hominid evolution. It is argued that grammatical rules used in given languages are likely to be simply conventionalized, invented features of language, and not the result of an innate, grammar-specific module. The grammatical and syntactic regularities that are found across languages occur simply because all languages attempt to communicate the same sorts of semantic information. (shrink)

Both syntactic and semantic solutions are given for the entailment problem of duality theory. The test algebra theorem provides both a syntactic solution to the entailment problem in terms of primitive positive formulae and a new derivation of the corresponding result in clone theory, viz. the syntactic description of $\operatorname{Inv(Pol}(R))$ for a given set R of finitary relations on a finite set. The semantic solution to the entailment problem follows from the syntactic one, or can be given in the form (...) of an algorithm. It shows, in the special case of a purely relational type, that duality-theoretic entailment is describable in terms of five constructs, namely trivial relations, intersection, repetition removal, product, and retractive projection. All except the last are concrete, in the sense that they are described by a quantifier-free formula. It is proved that if the finite algebra $\underline{M}$ generates a congruence-distributive variety and all subalgebras of $\underline{M}$ are subdirectly irreducible, then concrete constructs suffice to describe entailment. The concept of entailment appropriate to strong dualities is also introduced, and described in terms of coordinate projections, restriction of domains, and composition of partial functions. (shrink)

Proponents of the language of thought (LOT) thesis are realists when it comes to syntactically structured representations, and must defend their view against instrumentalists, who would claim that syntactic structures may be useful in describing cognition, but have no more causal powers in governing cognition than do the equations of physics in guiding the planets. This paper explores what it will take to provide an argument for LOT that can defend its conclusion from instrumentalism. I illustrate a difficulty in this (...) project by discussing arguments for LOT put forward by Horgan and Tienson. When their evidence is viewed in the light of results in connectionist research, it is hard to see how a realist conception of syntax can be formulated and defended. (shrink)

This groundbreaking book offers a new and compelling perspective on the structure of human language. The fundamental issue it addresses is the proper balance between syntax and semantics, between structure and derivation, and between rule systems and lexicon. It argues that the balance struck by mainstream generative grammar is wrong. It puts forward a new basis for syntactic theory, drawing on a wide range of frameworks, and charts new directions for research. In the past four decades, theories of syntactic (...) structure have become more abstract, and syntactic derivations have become ever more complex. Peter Culicover and Ray Jackendoff trace this development through the history of contemporary syntactic theory, showing how much it has been driven by theory-internal rather than empirical considerations. They develop an alternative that is responsive to linguistic, cognitive, computational, and biological concerns. At the core of this alternative is the Simpler Syntax Hypothesis: the most explanatory syntactic theory is one that imputes the minimum structure necessary to mediate between phonology and meaning. A consequence of this hypothesis is a far richer mapping between syntax and semantics than is generally assumed. Through concrete analyses of numerous grammatical phenomena, some well studied and some new, the authors demonstrate the empirical and conceptual superiority of the Simpler Syntax approach.Simpler Syntax is addressed to linguists of all persuasions. It will also be of central interest to those concerned with language in psychology, human biology, evolution, computational science, and artificial intellige. (shrink)

This book is a collection of key readings on Minimalist Syntax, the most recent, and arguably most important, theoretical development within the Principles and Parameters approach to syntactic theory. Brings together in one volume the key readings on Minimalist Syntax Includes an introduction and overview of the Minimalist Program written by two prominent researchers Excerpts crucial pieces from the beginning of Minimalism to the most recent work and provides invaluable coverage of the most important topics.

I critically examine some provocative arguments that John Searle presents in his book The Rediscovery of Mind to support the claim that the syntactic states of a classical computational system are "observer relative" or "mind dependent" or otherwise less than fully and objectively real. I begin by explaining how this claim differs from Searle's earlier and more well-known claim that the physical states of a machine, including the syntactic states, are insufficient to determine its semantics. In contrast, his more recent (...) claim concerns the syntax, in particular, whether a machine actually has symbols to underlie its semantics. I then present and respond to a number of arguments that Searle offers to support this claim, including whether machine symbols are observer relative because the assignment of syntax is arbitrary, or linked to universal realizability, or linked to the sub-personal interpretive acts of a homunculus, or linked to a person's consciousness. I conclude that a realist about the computational model need not be troubled by such arguments. Their key premises need further support. (shrink)

This book presents and exemplifies the theory of grammar called Semantic Syntax. The grammar, which offers a syntactic theory closely connected with semantic analyses, is a direct continuation of Generative Semantics; it will re-ignite interest in that framework which flourished and promised so much in the 1960s and 1970s.

I CATEGORIES AND PRINCIPLES ii Introductory Remarks The value of linguistics as a cognitive science lies largely in its potential for providing insights ...

One of the most important discoveries of the last thirty years is the extent to which the pattern of anaphoric interpretations is determined by the geometry of syntactic structure. As our understanding of these phenomena has steadily grown, the theory of syntax has often been driven by discoveries in this domain, and it is no accident that Chomsky's Binding Theory was a centerpiece of the principles and parameters approach of the 1980s. However, what remained accidental in Chomsky's theory, and (...) in most of the theories that have followed it, is the apparently complementary distribution of forms that support anaphora for a given antecedent. This book argues not only that the complementary distribution in question is robust empirically, but that its existence is derived by a competitive theory of anaphora. It is demonstrated in detail that the competitive theory provides a far better explanation of anti-locality, anti-subject orientation and the range of apparently exceptional distributions that have been long been problematic for other approaches, such as Chomsky's Binding Theory and the influential predication-based theory of Reinhart and Reuland. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that images, whether in the world or in the head, do not have a privileged analysis into constituent parts. They are thought to lack the sort of syntactic structure necessary for representing complex contents and entering into sophisticated patterns of inference. I reject this assumption. “Image grammars” are models in computer vision that articulate systematic principles governing the form and content of images. These models are empirically credible and can be construed as literal grammars for images. (...) Images can have rich syntactic structure, though of a markedly different form than sentences in language. (shrink)

Recently several philosophers of science have proposed what has come to be known as the semantic account of scientific theories. It is presented as an improvement on the positivist account, which is now called the syntactic account of scientific theories. Bas van Fraassen claims that the syntactic account does not give a satisfactory definition of "empirical adequacy" and "empirical equivalence". He contends that his own semantic account does define these notations acceptably, through the concept of "embeddability", a concept which he (...) claims cannot be defined syntactically. Here, I define a syntactic relation which corresponds to the semantic relation of "embeddability". I suggest that the critical differences between the positivist account and van Fraassen's account have nothing to do with the distinction between semantics and syntax. (shrink)

The discrepancy between syntax and semantics is a painstaking issue that hinders a better comprehension of the underlying neuronal processes in the human brain. In order to tackle the issue, we at first describe a striking correlation between Wittgenstein's Tractatus, that assesses the syntactic relationships between language and world, and Perlovsky's joint language-cognitive computational model, that assesses the semantic relationships between emotions and “knowledge instinct”. Once established a correlation between a purely logical approach to the language and computable psychological (...) activities, we aim to find the neural correlates of syntax and semantics in the human brain. Starting from topological arguments, we suggest that the semantic properties of a proposition are processed in higher brain's functional dimensions than the syntactic ones. In a fully reversible process, the syntactic elements embedded in Broca's area project into multiple scattered semantic cortical zones. The presence of higher functional dimensions gives rise to the increase in informational content that takes place in semantic expressions. Therefore, diverse features of human language and cognitive world can be assessed in terms of both the logic armor described by the Tractatus, and the neurocomputational techniques at hand. One of our motivations is to build a neuro-computational framework able to provide a feasible explanation for brain's semantic processing, in preparation for novel computers with nodes built into higher dimensions. (shrink)

Like '&', '=' is no term; it represents no extrasentential property. It marks an atomic, nonpredicative, declarative structure, sentences true solely by codesignation. Identity (its necessity and total reflexivity, its substitution rule, its metaphysical vacuity) is the objectual face of codesignation. The syntax demands pure reference, without predicative import for the asserted fact. 'Twain is Clemens' is about Twain, but nothing is predicated of him. Its informational value is in its 'metailed' semantic content: the fact of codesignation (that 'Twain' (...) names Clemens) that explains what fact it asserts and why it is necessary. Critiques of concepts of rigidity and elimination of singular terms result. (shrink)

1) Workbook Exercises (WBE): This workbook contains enrichment and additional practice exercises that go along with each chapter in the book. You can check your own answers against the answer key at the end of each chapter. 2) General Problem Sets (GPS) (in the main textbook): You can do the general problem sets at the end of each chapter in the main textbook. I'm sorry but the answers to these questions are not made available to students. The reason for this (...) is that many instructors use these problem sets as a means for student evaluation. Providing the answers to these would be counterproductive! If you are using the textbook for self-study or your instructor isn't using the problem sets for evaluation, I encourage you to find a linguistics professor or linguistics (post-)graduate student who can help you with determining if you are on the right track with these. 3)If you are an advanced student or a graduate student, I strongly encourage you to try the Challenge Problem Sets (CPS) at the end of each chapter in the main textbook. These problem sets are designed to make you think critically about the presentation in the text and to think about alternatives and problems that exist for the theory. Again the answers to these cannot be distributed to students. (shrink)