Formal theories of mental representation have receded from the importance they had in the early days of cognitive science. I argue that such theories are crucial in any mental domain, not just for their own sake, but to guide experimental inquiry, as well as to integrate the domain into the mind as a whole. To illustrate the criteria of adequacy…

The ability to generate novel utterances compositionally using generative knowledge is a hallmark property of human language. At the same time, languages contain non-compositional or idiosyncratic items, such as irregular verbs, idioms, etc. This dissertation asks how and why language achieves a balance between these two systems--generative and…

Generative approaches to language have long recognized the natural link between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition. The basic idea is that the knowledge representations provided by Universal Grammar enable children to acquire language as reliably as they do because these representations highlight the…

This dissertation introduces Minimal Reduplication, a new theory and framework within generative grammar for analyzing reduplication in human language. I argue that reduplication is an emergent property in multiple components of the grammar. In particular, reduplication occurs independently in the phonology and syntax components, and in both cases…

A discussion of linguistic theory shows that phonological descriptions can be more concrete without sacrificing accuracy or psychological credibility. (Author/HP)

This booklet is intended to enable the beginner in the field of transformational grammar to read and gain information about much of the contemporary scholarly literature on grammar (of foreign languages as well as of English). Sections in the book discuss phrase structure grammar; transformational rules--movement rules, insertion rules,…

An analysis of some of the historical rules of consonant deletion, vowel deletion, nasalization, and initial h-deletion--all recapitulated synchronically within the transformational generative accounts of French linking--showing that they have undergone morphologization in the form of inversion, and that h-aspire words have been assigned the…

This supplement to "A Bibliography of Generative-Based Grammatical Analyses of Spanish" includes all available materials that have appeared since November 1973, and pre-1973 entries not contained in the original bibliography, particularly items published outside the U.S. The present bibliography, like the original, contains two general divisions:…

This article argues that morphosemantic sets are a consequence of general properties of language structure. Thus the sets serve as a framework for advancing the study of motivation as a functional feature of language use. (Author/NCR)

GENERATIVE THEORY NOW DOMINATES MACHINE TRANSLATION AND HAS BEGUN TO TAKE OVER THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN THE SCHOOLS, AS ONE PUBLISHER AFTER ANOTHER COMES OUT WITH A TRANSFORMATIONALLY-ORIENTED SERIES OF TEXTBOOK FOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH. THE AUTHOR FEELS, HOWEVER, THAT THE EFFECTS OF THIS THEORY ON LANGUAGE TEACHING HAVE BEEN NEGLIGIBLE…

This is the second supplement to "A Bibliography of Generative-Based Grammatical Analyses of Spanish." It includes all available materials that have appeared since February of 1975. This bibliography contains two general divisions: phonology and syntax/semantics. Information regarding the location of reviews and abstracts is included in most of…

The justification for the Chomsky-Halle Auxiliary Reduction Rule III, called Pretonic Stress Placement (PSP), is questioned from the point of view of the native speaker. The similarity of the PSP and the Main Stress Rule (MSR) is examined through the application of these rules to polysyllabic monomorphemic and polymorphemic words. This analysis is…

This book represents, in part, the written record of the "Linguistic Symposium of Romance Languages: Application of Generative Grammar to Their Description and Teaching," held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in February 1971. The aim of the Symposium was to bring forth contributions in the description of Romance languages, to draw…