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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