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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/