Syntactic Structures (2nd Edition)

✍ Scribed by Noam Chomsky

• Publisher: de Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 133
• Edition: 2nd
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Noam Chomsky's first book on syntactic structures is one of the first serious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct within the tradition of scientific theory-construction a comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the same sense that a chemical, biological theory is understood by experts in those fields. It is not a mere reorganization of the data into a new kind of library catalogue, nor another specualtive philosophy about the nature of man and language, but rather a rigorus explication of our intuitions about our language in terms of an overt axiom system, the theorems derivable from it, explicit results which may be compared with new data and other intuitions, all based plainly on an overt theory of the internal structure of languages; and it may well provide an opportunity for the application of explicity measures of simplicity to decide preference of one form over another form of grammar.

✦ Table of Contents

Title ......Page 3
Copyright ......Page 4
Introduction to Second Edition by David W. Lightfoot ......Page 5
Preface ......Page 19
Table of Contents ......Page 23
1. Introduction ......Page 25
2. The Independence of Grammar ......Page 27
3. An Elementary Linguistic Theory ......Page 32
4. Phrase Structure ......Page 40
5. Limitations of Phrase Structure Description ......Page 48
6. On the Goals of Linguistic Theory ......Page 63
7. Some Transformations in English ......Page 75
8. The Explanatory Power of Linguistic Theory ......Page 99
9. Syntax and Semantics ......Page 106
10. Summary ......Page 120
11. Appendix I: Notations and Terminology ......Page 123
12. Appendix II: Examples of English Phrase Structure and Transformational Rules ......Page 125
Bibliography ......Page 129