Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies: Volume 38 (Current Studies in Linguistics, 38) - Softcover

Frank, Robert; Keyser, Samuel Jay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262562081 ISBN 13: 9780262562089

Publisher: MIT Press, 2004

Synopsis

In Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies, Robert Frank explores an approach to syntactic theory that weds the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) formalism with the minimalist framework. TAG has been extensively studied both for its mathematical properties and for its usefulness in computational linguistics applications. Frank shows that incorporating TAG's formally restrictive operations for structure building considerably simplifies the model of grammatical competence, particularly in the components concerned with syntactic movement and locality. The empirical advantages of the resulting model, illustrated with extensive case studies of subject-raising constructions and wh-questions, point toward a conception of grammar that is sharply limited in its computational power.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Frank is Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262562081
• ISBN 13: 9780262562089
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 340