Description
Book SynopsisThis ground--breaking volume sets out an original model of the dynamics of language processing, which can be used to explain the structural properties of language in a simple and elegant way. The model is introduced both informally and formally, and is applied to a range of languages.
Trade Review"The framework of
Dynamic Syntax is the most exciting new development in syntactic theory to emerge in recent years. As well as providing a full introduction to the framework, this book provides in-depth discussions of relative clause constructions,
wh questions and crossover phenomena in a range of languages including English, Arabic and Japanese. This book is likely to become a classic and will be of interest to all those interested in the syntactic modelling of natural languages."
Ronnie Cann, University of Edinburgh "This is an important book and ... the ideas presented in it deserve the close attention of syntacticians and semanticists." Linguist List
Table of ContentsPreface
1 Towards a Syntactic Model of Interpretation 1
1.1 Natural Language as a Formal Language? 1
1.2 Underspecification in Language Processing 3
1.3 The Representational Theory of Mind 7
1.4 Pronominal Anaphora: Semantic Problems 9
1.4.1 The Problem of Multiple Ambiguity 9
1.4.2 The Problem of Uniqueness 12
1.4.3 The Problem of Indirect Reference 13
1.4.4 Quantification 15
1.4.5 Syntactic Processes of Anaphora 15
1.5 The Anaphora Solution – Towards a Representational Account 16
2 The General Framework 18
2.1 A Preliminary Sketch 19
2.2 The Data Structures of the Parsing Model 27
2.2.1 Atomic Formulae 31
2.2.2 Tree Modalities 36
2.2.3 Basic Tree Structures 39
2.2.4 Partial Tree Structures 41
2.2.5 Requirements 42
2.2.6 Descriptions of Tree Structures 49
3 The Dynamics of Tree Building 55
3.1 The Parsing Process – A Sketch 56
3.1.1 A Basic Example 56
3.1.2 A Left-Dislocation Example 64
3.1.3 Verb-final Languages and the Grammar-parser Problem 67
3.2 The Parsing Process Defined 76
3.2.1 Computational Rules 80
3.2.2 Lexical Transitions 89
3.2.3 Pragmatic Actions and Lexical Constraints 95
3.3 Summary 98
4 Linked Tree Structures 103
4.1 Relative Clauses – Preliminaries 103
4.1.1 The LINK Relation 104
4.1.2 The Data Reviewed 105
4.2 The Analysis – A Sketch for English 109
4.2.1 Defining Linked Tree Structures 110
4.2.2 Relativizers Annotating Unfixed Nodes 111
4.3 Relatives: Towards a Dynamic Typology 121
4.3.1 Relativizers Projecting a Requirement 121
4.3.2 Variation in Locality 128
4.3.3 Topic Structures and Relatives 130
4.3.4 Variation in Order – Head-Final Relatives 133
4.3.5 Head-internal Relatives 139
4.3.6 The Potential for Lexical Variation 142
4.4 Genitive Constructions as LINK Structures 144
4.5 Summary 148
5 Wh Questions: A General Perspective 150
5.1 Introduction 150
5.2 The Semantic Diversity of wh Questions 151
5.2.1 Scopal Properties of wh Expressions 154
5.3 Wh initial vs -in-situ Structures 156
5.3.1 Wh-in-situ Structures 158
5.3.2 Wh-in-situ from a Dynamic Perspective 161
5.4 Expletive wh Structures 163
5.4.1 Partial Movement 163
5.4.2 Partial Movement as a Reflex of a Requirement 169
5.5 Wh Expressions and Scope Effects 186
6. Crossover Phenomena 190
6.1 Crossover – The Problem 190
6.2 Crossover – The Dynamic Account 196
6.2.1 Crossover in Relatives 196
6.2.2 Crossover Phenomena in Questions 213
6.3 Summary 221
7 Quantification Preliminaries 223
7.1 Introduction 223
7.2 Scope Effects and Indefinites 224
7.3 Quantification 231
7.3.1 Quantified NPs 234
7.3.2 Scope 239
7.3.3 Term Reconstructions 245
7.3.4 Applications – E-type Anaphora 249
8 Reflections on Language Design 253
8.1 The Overall Perspective 253
8.2 Underspecification and the Formal Language Metaphor 259
8.2.1 English is not a Formal Language 260
8.3 Well-formedness and Availability of Interpretations 262
8.4 Universals and Language Variation 264
8.5 On Knowledge of Language 266
9 The Formal Framework 268
9.1 Introduction 268
9.2 Declarative Structure 273
9.2.1 Feature-decorated Tree Construction 273
9.2.2 Goal directedness 291
9.2.3 The Structure of Goal-directed Partial Tree Models 297
9.2.4 Tree Descriptions 302
9.3 Procedural Structure 307
9.3.1 Actions over Goal-directed Partial Tree Models 308
9.3.2 Natural Languages 312
9.4 Axioms 317
9.4.1 Finite Binary trees 317
9.4.2 Partial Trees 319
9.4.3 Requirements 320
9.4.4 Actions 321
9.4.5 Partial Order 322
9.4.6 Logical Forms 322
9.4.7 Computational Rules 323
9.4.8 Update Actions 325
9.4.9 Pragmatic Actions 325
Bibliography 326
General Index 338
Symbol Index 347
