This study aims to assess the evidence regarding the relationship between previous and new schools of linguistics. According to Kuhn (1970), old linguistic paradigms incorporate vocabulary and apparatus from previous or traditional paradigms. In particular, this review addresses the Question: Do new paradigms in linguistic arise from old or…

The extensive literature on subject expression in Spanish makes for rich comparisons between generative (formal) and usage-based (functional) approaches to language acquisition. This article explores how the problem of subject expression has been conceptualized within each research tradition, as well as unanswered questions that both approaches…

I review the classic literature in generative grammar and Marr's three-level program for cognitive science to defend the Evaluation Metric as a psychological theory of language learning. Focusing on well-established facts of language variation, change, and use, I argue that optimal statistical principles embodied in Bayesian inference models are…

Language attracts everyone on earth. That is because we have and use language. Although there are some minority languages that have limited expressions such as the lack of writing systems in "Aynu itak" and "Shona" languages, they can effectively express their emotion and thought with their languages. In addition, every human being can acquire…

Advocates the application of Popper's ideas (1963, 1972) about the nature of science and objectivist epistemology to generativist linguistics, discussing the subsequent effects on five key metatheoretical positions: fallibilism; realism; objectivism; autonomism; and interactionism. (12 references) (CB)

The language arts are constructed like a doughnut or a bagel, so that at their center where there might be something, there is instead a hole--emptiness. The dominant approach to understanding the nature of language--generative grammar--does not suggest a center for the language arts. An alternative approach to language and mind is "cognitive…

Supplements Hans Basboll's state-of-the-art report on generative phonology (EJ 227 659), focusing on "abstract" v "concrete" approaches to surface data. Includes a summary of a discussion on phonology. (RL)

Research (1968-1978) on the development of generative grammar in mentally retarded students is summarized for such topics as noun pluralization and suffixes, pronouns, adjectives, articles, verbs, prepositions, interrogatives, and generalization. Unresolved issues in generalization are noted. (CL)

Notes the parallels between N. Chomsky and M. Halle's "The Sound Pattern of English" and A. N. Whitehead and B. Russell's "Principia Mathematica." Uses these parallels to distinguish "formalist" v "substance-based" generative phonology. Suggests that a modification of the "formalist" program is ultimately more satisfactory than the…

Discusses trends and developments in generative phonology; metatheory and evidence in phonology; and segments, features, and marking. (RL)

To integrate many of the theoretical linguistic studies examining pronoun reference, this paper focuses on tracing the shift from purely transformational syntactic studies of intrasentential phenomena to the wider orientations of discourse and pragmatic studies. The first section describes the classic studies of pronominalization within the…

Discusses the motivation for Universal Grammar (UG), as assumed in the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (Chomsky, 1981), focusing on the logical problem of first-language acquisition and the potential role of UG in second-language acquisition. Recent experimental research regarding the second-language status of the…

Reviews recent trends in generative research on second language acquisition, focusing on the role of universal grammar, parameter resetting, and anaphoric binding. An annotated bibliography discusses five important works in the field. (61 references) (MDM)

A survey of the history of linguistic theory concerning grammar in the United States traces the development of theory since 1910. It begins with a general historical review of American linguistics. The subsequent three chapters focus on grammar. The first of these deals with morphology, beginning with Leonard Bloomfield's ideas in both his early…

Contemporary syntactic theory rejects the idea that prescriptive grammar can provide students with any insights into how language works. For generative grammar, a term for the aggregate of methodologies which currently dominates modern linguistics, rules determining the grammaticality of a sentence do not relate in any way to the rules which make…