Generalized Transformations and Beyond

Abstract

feature triggering movement. 24 Manfred Bierwisch (p.c.) points out that the complexity of acquiring the lexicon depends on how rich the structure of the latter is taken to be. This, of course, is a highly controversial matter. 25 For the latter issues, see among many others Bobaljik (1995b), HalleM italics mine, H.M.G.). (B) “Notice that I am sweeping under the rug questions of considerable significance, notably, questions about what in the earlier Extended Standard Theory (EST) framework were called “surface effects“ on interpretation. These are manifold, involving topic-focus and theme-rheme structures, figure-ground properties, effects of adjacency and linearity, and many others. Prima facie, they seem to involve some additional level or levels internal to the phonological component, postmorphology but prephonetic, accessed at the interface along with PF (Phonetic Form) and LF (Logical Form)“ (p.220; italics mine, H.M.G.). In order to make sense of (A), assuming standard versions of binding theory etc., “the interface“ has to refer to the designated LF-representation λ. At the same time, (B) singularizes “the interface“ in a way that, if I understand this correctly, hypothetically unifies the interface levels LF, PF, and the putative additional one, into a superstructure, i.e. “the interface,“ accessible via a set of representations, among which, of course, π and λ would have to be found. Thirdly, I prefer not to go into what I've called “semantic translation.“ Whether or not semantics is inside CHL would be more than a terminological question if we knew more precisely what conceptual-intentional (C-I) systems are supposed to be. I am, however, inclined to believe that there is something genuinely linguistic about matters of semantic interpretation, which would qualify them as “knowledge of language,“ the object of study of generative linguistics. Natural language syntax as it emerges from studies of generative syntacticians does not seem to me to encompass these matters of interpretation in any sufficient way. For detailed discussion of some of these questions see for example Bierwisch (1982), Chomsky (1971, 1995c), Higginbotham (1985), Jackendoff (1972, 1990), Partee (1975), and von Stechow (1993). Remarks like the following terminologically complicate the picture further, given that the term “syntax“ would seem to be construable as covering large parts of cognitive science. My general point concerning interpretation, though, is unaffected if not vindicated here. “[. . .] I suspect that much of the very fruitful inquiry and debate over what is called “the semantics of natural language“ will come to be understood as really about the properties of a certain level of syntactic representation call it LF which has properties developed in model-theoretic semantics, or the theory of LF-movement, or Minimalist Syntax 20 Schematically, CHL will look like (3), a mapping between three objects, π and λ having been introduced above already. The “lexicon“ takes over the role of vocabulary A of section 2.1 in a non-trivial way.

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