Current Approaches to Syntax: A Comparative Handbook

Description

Even though the range of phenomena syntactic theories intend to account for is basically the same, the large number of current approaches to syntax shows how differently these phenomena can be interpreted, described, and explained. The goal of the volume is to probe into the question of how exactly these frameworks differ and what if anything they have in common. Descriptions of a sample of current approaches to syntax are presented by their major practitioners (Part I) followed by their metatheoretical underpinnings (Part II). Given that the goal is to facilitate a systematic comparison among the approaches, a checklist of issues was given to the contributors to address. The main headings are Data, Goals, Descriptive Tools, and Criteria for Evaluation. The chapters are structured uniformly allowing an item-by-item survey across the frameworks. The introduction lays out the parameters along which syntactic frameworks must be the same and how they may differ and a final paper draws some conclusions about similarities and differences. The volume is of interest to descriptive linguists, theoreticians of grammar, philosophers of science, and studies of the cognitive science of science. Acknowledgment Contents Biographical Sketches 1. Introduction Part I: Approaches to syntax 2. Cognitive Grammar 3. Construction Grammar 4. Simpler Syntax 5. Lexical Functional Grammar 6. The Decathlon Model 7. The Stupendous Success of the Minimalist Program 8. The Parallel Architecture 9. Usage-based Grammar 10. Optimality-theoretic Syntax 11. The Functional Discourse Grammar approach to syntax 12. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 13. Dependency Grammar 14. Combinatory Categorial Grammar Part II: Metatheoretical foundations 15. Syntactic knowledge and intersubjectivity 16. Hermeneutics and generative linguistics 17. The uncertainty of syntactic theorizing 18. The multiparadigmatic structure of science and generative grammar 19. The philosophy of generative linguistics: best theory criteria 20. The research programme of Chomskyan linguistics 21. Conclusions: On the use of the comparison of syntactic theories Author Index Language Index Subject Index