How is the meaning of natural language interpreted? Taking as its point of departure the logical problem of natural language acquisition, this book elaborates a theory of meaning based on syntactical
How do humans acquire, at a very early age and from fragmentary and haphazard data, the complex patterns of their native language? This is the logical problem of language acquisition, and it is the qu
Understanding Minimalism, first published in 2005, is an introduction to the Minimalist Program - the model of syntactic theory within generative linguistics. Accessibly written, it presents the basic principles and techniques of the minimalist program, looking firstly at analyses within Government and Binding Theory (the Minimalist Program's predecessor), and gradually introducing minimalist alternatives. Minimalist models of grammar are presented in a step-by-step fashion, and the ways in which they contrast with GB analyses are clearly explained. Spanning a decade of minimalist thinking, this textbook will enable students to develop a feel for the sorts of questions and problems that minimalism invites, and to master the techniques of minimalist analysis. Over 100 exercises are provided, encouraging them to put these skills into practice. Understanding Minimalism will be an invaluable text for intermediate and advanced students of syntactic theory, and will set a solid foundation fo
Human language seems to have arisen roughly within the last 50-100,000 years. In evolutionary terms, this is the mere blink of an eye. If this is correct, then much of what we consider distinctive to language must in fact involve operations available in pre-linguistic cognitive domains. In this book Norbert Hornstein, one of the most influential linguists working on syntax, discusses a topical set of issues in syntactic theory, including a number of original proposals at the cutting edge of research in this area. He provides a theory of the basic grammatical operations and suggests that there is only one that is distinctive to language. If this theory is correct then this narrows the evolutionary gap between verbal and non-verbal primates, thus facilitating the rapid evolutionary emergence of our linguistic capacity.
The Merge Hypothesis is the central empirical theoretical contribution of the Minimalist Program (MP) to syntactic theory. This book offers an accessible overview of the MP, debunking common sixty years of Generative research, culminating in GB theory. He introduces The Fundamental Principle of Grammar, which advocates including labels as part of the Merge Operation and centring the notion of the constituent as the key domain of syntactic commerce. The early chapters identify the goals of the MP, how they arose from earlier descriptive and explanatory successes of the mentalist tradition within Generative Grammar, and how to develop them in future work to expand its descriptive and explanatory range. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary syntactic theory.
Human language seems to have arisen roughly within the last 50-100,000 years. In evolutionary terms, this is the mere blink of an eye. If this is correct, then much of what we consider distinctive to language must in fact involve operations available in pre-linguistic cognitive domains. In this book Norbert Hornstein, one of the most influential linguists working on syntax, discusses a topical set of issues in syntactic theory, including a number of original proposals at the cutting edge of research in this area. He provides a theory of the basic grammatical operations and suggests that there is only one that is distinctive to language. If this theory is correct then this narrows the evolutionary gap between verbal and non-verbal primates, thus facilitating the rapid evolutionary emergence of our linguistic capacity.
As Norbert Hornstein writes in his foreword, "it underestimates Chomsky's impact in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology to describe it as immense." In "Rules and Representations," Noam Chomsky lay
As Norbert Hornstein writes in his foreword, "it underestimates Chomsky's impact in linguistics, philosophy, and psychology to describe it as immense." In Rules and Representations, Noam Chomsky lays
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is co
