Generative semantics is (or perhaps was) a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of George Lakoff, John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later McCawley. The approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid 1960s, but stood largely in opposition to work by Noam Chomsky and his students. The nature and genesis of…

This paper analyzes "wh"-questions in the English Language based mainly on Chomsky's Minimalist Programme of transformational grammar as the theoretical model. The four main objectives of this paper are as follows: first, it undertakes a cross linguistic typological analysis of "wh"-questions and it then discusses the derivation of…

Speech and language therapist and teacher practitioners need particular knowledge to work effectively together to support the needs of individual learners. Using the frame of modes of knowledge (Gibbon, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzmann, Scott, and Trow, "The new production of knowledge", London, Sage Publications, 1994), the necessary…

In vocabulary testing, whether to adopt context is a heat-debated topic. In the article, an experiment is designed to investigate what is the effect of zero context and sentence context on the vocabulary testing? And how do the different kinds of context in vocabulary affect the subjects' performance? The experimental result demonstrates that…

Harris's original idea of transformations has been changed several times in Chomsky's work. This article explicates these transformations, arguing that though their motivations are highly understandable, these transformations are not necessary for understanding the workings of natural languages. (Author/VWL)

Discusses Chomsky's linguistic theories and suggests that these theories have clear implications for politics, philosophy, and psychology. (five references) (JL)

This paper introduces the Government-Binding Theory of grammar and offers examples of the theory's use in areas of language development, child language disorders, and adult aphasia. Discussed are the levels of representation of Universal Grammar, subtheories that constrain the representations at each level, parameter setting, core grammar, and…

Discussion of methodologies for the semantic integration of databases focuses on formalizing the notion of schema equivalence and the schema integration process. Topics include common data model; the Entity-Relationship (ER)model; transformation of ER models; transformational, mapping, and behavioral schema equivalence; and knowledge-based…

Examines the claim that transformational rules are psychologically real, and applies this claim to all aspects of transformational grammar. (AM)

Examines "do so" and "so do" constructions, with reference to the questions of verb phrase constituency and ambiguity. (AM)

Examines Pierre Bourdieu's basic theory on language and criticisms of structuralism, transformational grammar, and the speech act theory as they appear in Language and Symbolic Power. Bourdieu's theories are applied to the colonial and postcolonial language situation in Nigeria. (JP)

For the past 30 years, much has been written about the works of Noam Chomsky. A comparison is presented of the latest writings about Chomsky (in particular P.M.S. Hacker's 1990 work) with those written in the early 1960s. (CFM)

Suggests the possibility of combining aspects of a transformational generative theory such as deep structure case grammar with concepts from a nontransformational, nongenerative theoretical framework such as form content analysis, for practical application in the area of foreign language teaching. (SL)

Analyzes a selection of papers centered around the idea that it is possible to consider the evidence of language variation in linguistic analysis. The papers were presented at the 1972 colloquium on "New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English," Georgetown University. (AM)

An account of the phenomena that transformational syntax handled by means of "raising" is formulated in the context of cognitive grammar. Raising is analyzed as a special case of the metonymy that relational expressions exhibit in regard to their choice of overtly coded arguments. The transparency of these constructions is explained. (83…