Simpler Syntax

by Peter W. Culicover, Ray Jackendoff

Overview

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.

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 intelligence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199271092
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2005
Series:	Oxford Linguistics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	9.68(w) x 6.80(h) x 1.22(d)

About the Author

Peter W. Culicover is Chair of the Department of Linguistics and former Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at the Ohio State University. His books include Formal Principles of Language Acquisition (1980, with Kenneth Wexler), Principles and Parameters (1997), Syntactic Nuts (1999), and Dynamical Grammar (2003, with Andrzej Nowak).

Ray Jackendoff is Professor of Philosophy and Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He was previously Professor of Linguistics at Brandeis University. His books include Semantics and Cognition (1983), Consciousness and the Computational Mind (1987), A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1982, with Fred Lerdahl), and Foundations of Language (2002). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past president of the Linguistic Association of America and of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

Table of Contents

PART I Cutting Syntax Down to Size1. Why Simpler Syntax? 2. How did we get here? Principles and early history of mainstream syntax3. Later History of Mainstream Syntax4. Flat StructurePART II The Syntax-Semantics Interface5. Basic Clause Structure6. The Grammatical Function Tier7. Bare Argument Ellipsis and its Relatives8. VP Ellipsis and its Relatives9. Discontinuous DependenciesPART III Binding and Control10. Mme. Tussaud Meets the Binding Theory11. Something Else for the Binding Theory12. The Semantic Basis of Control in EnglishPART IV Connections Between Clauses13. Semantic Subordination Despite Syntactic Coordination14. The View from the Periphery: The English comparative correlative15. What is Language Like? Moving On

Editorial Reviews

"Simpler Syntax is a very rich book, both in its basic content—over 500 pages worth—and in its generous provision of food for thought. It should prove thought-provoking not just for scholars working within generative linguistics, for whom it will provide many novel and insightful solutions to some very old questions within that paradigm, but also for linguists from outside the generative tradition, who will find in it one of the very few historically and applicationally contextualised accounts of the preoccupations of generative linguistics."—Linguist List 17.718

"This book is a major step forward for linguistics. Its systematic, accessible style of analysis heralds a renaissance in syntax, not just for specialists but for everyone."—Mark Liberman, University of Pennsylvania

"Two master syntacticians show how far current syntactic theory has lost touch with reality—and how to reconnect. A brilliant book, inspiring new optimism about the field."—Geoffrey K. Pullum, University of California, Santa Cruz

From the Publisher