What Johanna is describing with respect to frames that verbs fit
into, like her example of "put", is what Chomsky described in
Aspects in 1965 as selectional restrictions.  These are stated in
terms of semantic features, that is, features that make semantic
information accessible to the syntax so that the syntax can
operate on it.  It's still syntactically driven.

I agree with her reservations about mathematical modeling of
language.  The set theoretic approach has a formal elegance and
simplicity to it that is esthetically and intellectually pleasing,
but it misses an awful lot that makes language interesting,
factors like intonational contrast that may be matters of degree,
discourse pragmatics that makes it possible to predict a lot of
sentence-level syntax, and matters like the interaction of gender
and language.

Herb Stahlke

<<< [log in to unmask]  2/28  9:49p >>>
Is generative grammar only about syntax?

Generative syntax relies a great deal on the lexicon for its
devices to
work. A great deal of information that controls the grammaticality
of
'surface structures' is in the lexical entries of words that
appear in
the sentence. The book I am currently using for a grad intro ling
class,
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction by O'Grady et al., 4th
edition, includes the lexicon as part of syntactic theory. So far
as I
can tell (I don't follow current generative syntax), the book is
very up
to date.( I suppose there might be theories of language that
separate
the lexicon from syntax, and posit some kind of interface
mechanism.)

To give an example, a verb like 'put' would have specified in its
lexical entry that it MUST 'surface' in a structure that includes
expressions coding both a 'theme' (thing put) and 'loc' (an
expression
naming the location in which the thing is put). In this way, it is
guaranteed that, if you choose 'put' for a sentence, you will not
fail
to include the necessary complements.

By way of a general comment, I don't believe that mathematical
models
are appropriate for modelling language. Language has its own
principles
and organization; these have a lot to do with cognitive psychology
and
the way the human brain works, not with abstract mathematical or
logical
theories (this is the perspective of practitioners of
non-generative
linguistics, anyway). We may someday be able to model the activity
of
the brain mathematically, but this seems a rather indirect way of
modelling language. And of course we would then be describing all
of
human behavior, not just language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  *  Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept. Phone.
756-259
* E-mail: [log in to unmask] *  Home page:
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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