Awards

• Winner of Winner in the category of Linguistics in the 1998 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. 1998

Overview

"This text takes the form of a dialogue between a linguist and another scientist. The dialogue takes place over six day, with each day devoted to a particular topic - and the ensuing digressions. The role of the linguist is to present the fundamentals of the minimalist program of contemporary generative grammar. Although the linguist serves essentially as a voice for Noam Chomsky's ideas, he is not intended to be a portrait of Chomsky himself. The other scientist functions as a kind of devil's advoacate, making the arguments that linguists tend to face from those in ""harder"" sciences. In addition to the device of the dialogue, the author employs a myriad of graphics - everything from classical paintings to contemporary cartoons. The author does more than simply present the minimalist programme. He conducts a running argument over the status of theoretical linguistics as a natural science. He raises the general issues of how we conceive words, phrases, and transformations, and what these processes tell us about the human mind. He also attempts to reconcile generative grammar with the punctuated equilibrium version of evolutionary theory. For according to the linguist, the linguistic system in our species emerged as a complex system, comparable to other complex phenomena in life that elude strict adaptionist explanations."

Full Product Details

Author:   Juan Uriagereka (University of Maryland) ,  Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Dimensions:   Width: 22.90cm , Height: 4.10cm , Length: 25.40cm
Weight:   1.497kg
ISBN:  

9780262710084

ISBN 10:   0262710080
Pages:   720
Publication Date:   24 July 2000
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Out of stock  

Table of Contents

"Part 1 The first day - the minimalist viewpoint: the mystery of language acquisition; the mystery of language variation; knowledge of language; simple learning methods; simple universal minds; economy; language and form. Part 2 The second day - notation and reality: levels of representation; words (repeat thrice); systems of features; the inclusive nature of LF; the invariant parts of the computational system; representational alternatives; optimality theory. Part 3 The third day - phrases and linearity: (virtually) necessary properties; phrasal representations; precendence by hierarchy; some interesting predictions; further intriguing predictions; empty categories are not empty; further consequences of linearization. Part 4 The fourth day - cyclic transformations: movement in languages ""without movement""; extending structures; noncyclic mergers?; adjunction; the array as a numeration; clockwork; some open questions to exercise with. Part 5 The fifth day - chains and their checking domain: the minimal link condition; well-formedness conditions versus ranking criteria; further conditions pertaining to chains; the overall shape of grammatical chains (and where it may come from); desperately seeking features; there!; heads and tails. Part 6 The sixth day - words and their internal domain: internal domains; much ado about word formation; the subcase principle; departures from optimality; on the origins of uninterpretable features; evolution strikes back; an abrupt and unexpected coda. Part 7 And on the seventh day..."

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Author Information

Juan Uriagereka, a graduate student of Howard Lasnik, transcribed and did the initial editing of the tapes of the original lectures for A Course In GB Syntax. Current Studies in Linguistics.

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