Download Lecture 2 Modals of Generative Grammars Intuitively, what the

Lecture 2
Modals of Generative Grammars
Intuitively, what the internalized grammar does is to mediate between sound (i.e. what
one hears, and alternatively what one produces) and meaning (i.e. what one understands,
and alternatively what one wants to communicate) (cf. A.Cornilescu). Thus, each
sentence must be associated with a semantic interpretation and with a phonological
interpretation.
Chomsky's early model of GG devised in "Aspects" (1965) contained, in a simplified
version, a tripartite structure:
The Semantic Component
The Syntactic Component
The Phonological Component
In this conception, syntax is responsible for "producing" the grammatical sentences of
language; these sentences are assigned a semantic interpretation (a meaning) in the
Semantic Component and they are also given a phonological interpretation in the
Phonological Component. The Syntactic Component occupies a central position.
To quote Chomsky again, "it became increasingly clear to me that limitation to
procedures based on substitution, matching, and similar "taxonomic" operations was
arbitrary and unwarranted. One might approach the problem of projecting a corpus to a
language of grammatical sentences in an entirely different way, with a procedure for
evaluating a completed system of categories rather than a procedure for constructing
these categories step by step by taxonomic methods" (Chomsky (1975) (Reflections on
Language)).
Thus, gradually Chomsky arrived at the conclusion that "grammar is a system of rules
that specifies the set of sentences of some language L, and assigns to each sentence a
structural description. The structural description of a sentence S constitutes a full account
of the elements of S and their organization" (Chomsky, (1975), ‘Reflections on
Language’)).
The idea of constructing a grammar as a system of rules leads to the fundamental
epistemological problem of justifying this construction that is of validating linguistic
research in general.
To validate linguistics as the science of language, Chomsky put forth the concept of
'linguistic theory' (LT). As will appear, LT is in fact a universal grammar, although the
term itself is not yet used (in ‘Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory’, 1955/1975).
Thus, we have to do with the following triplet:
Linguistic Theory (LT) -- Grammar (G) -- Language (Lg).
LT defines a system of levels of representation. The levels considered in LSLT are the
following, reflecting the passage from structuralism to Generative Grammar: phonetic
(words are made up of phonemes), word, lexical category (Noun, Verb), morphemic
(there are lexical morphemes such as table and grammatical morphemes such as the
marker of plural -s in tables), phrase-structure and transformational. The use of
"Generative Grammar" should not be misleading: "generative" means that the description
is rigorous and explicit."When we speak of the linguist's grammar as a "generative
grammar" we mean only that it is sufficiently explicit to determine how sentences of the
language are in fact characterized by the grammar"(i.e. they conform to the assumed
grammar) (Chomsky (1980), ‘Rules and Representations’). So, the term "generative" is
not used as a synonym for "productive" but for "explicit and formal".
The motivation behind the level construction has to do with the complexity of language.
Thus, if one were to give a direct description of the set of grammatical sentences of L as a
sequence of phonemes, one would be faced with an unmanageable task. Instead of
attempting this, the linguist analyses phoneme sequences into morphemes, morphemes
into sequences of words and then phrases (NP,VP).
The term of UG, competence and performance have not been introduced yet in LSLT.
However, from among the problems that have constantly concerned Chomsky it was
especially the problem of rule-governed creativity: "The primary question for LT is to
show how speakers produce and understand new sentences" (Chomsky (1975),
Reflections on Language)) and also "The fundamental long-term task is to provide an
explanation for the general process of projection by which speakers extend their limited
linguistic experience to new and immediately accepted sentences" (Chomsky (1975)).
The idea of constructing a grammar as a system of rules leads to the fundamental
problem of evaluating rival descriptions, selecting among them on a principled basis.
That is why a linguistic theory was needed. Linguistic theory does offer an evaluation
procedure for grammars as it provides two types of evaluation criteria.
There is first the criterion of external adequacy or descriptive adequacy. A grammar is
externally or descriptively adequate if it is "faithful to the data", that is, if it produces all
and only the correct sentences of the language. It is not enough for a grammar to define
the set of well-formed sentences of a language; it must also assign a structural description
to each well-formed sentence. A grammar that claims that the structure of the English NP
is always Det + N, without specifying what kind of noun may follow the determiners is
descriptively inadequate since it may come up with sentences like: *The Jane is here,
*Some London is in England. A theory of grammar must operate within the constraints
on the form or function of a language. Obviously, the relationship between individual
grammars and the general theory is a complex one. The discovery that the grammar of a
language has a rule-type that is not compatible with the theory of grammar may entail
that the theory has to be modified in the relevant respects. On the other hand, it may turn
out that a more careful analysis of the data from the language in question yields a solution
involving the interaction of two already familiar rule-types so that no adjustment of the
overall theory is necessary. In general, the ultimate objective should be an overall theory
which is as restrictive as possible in terms of the descriptive apparatus it endorses while
remaining compatible with the set of data it purports to account for. Such a restrictive
theory is an empirical theory because it makes testable predictions about what is a
possible natural-language grammar.
Secondly, there is the criterion of internal adequacy or explanatory adequacy. This
requirement means that a grammar should conform to the theory of grammar, it should
obey the formal requirements stipulated there, it should meet conditions of simplicity, it
should offer intuitively satisfactory explanations. Only those descriptively adequate
grammars that are compatible with its requirements will be genuinely adequate. A theory
of this general sort constitutes an explanation of why it is that the grammars of natural
languages are set up in the way they are. Such a theory explains "why it is that from the
indefinitely large range of logically conceivable types of rule of principle only a handful
are ever exploited in the grammars of human languages" (Horrocks (1987)). By contrast,
a theory that excludes nothing as impossible can, in turn, explain nothing. A theory that
selects the best available descriptively adequate grammar for a given language is said to
be explanatorily adequate.
As said above, in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" (1965), Chomsky introduced the
fundamental conceptual pair 'competence' (tacit linguistic knowledge of the speaker) and
'performance' (actual use of the language by the speaker). He will also explicitly refer to
'"universal grammar", a term which supplants "linguistic theory", and to the conceptual
triad 'universal grammar (UG) -- grammar of a particular language (G) -- language
(Lg).
A theory of grammar that enjoys both descriptive and explanatory adequacy is in effect a
theory of universal grammar defining the descriptive resources available for constructing
the grammars of individual languages. The more powerful such a theory is, the less
comprehensive the grammars of particular languages will be: that is because, to a very
large extent, the properties of the rule-systems that make up natural language grammars
will be automatic consequences of the theory of universal grammar. It is therefore natural
that the emphasis will shift from issues of descriptive adequacy to issues of explanatory
adequacy resulting in the discovery of quite abstract principles of considerable
explanatory power.
The UG theory, conceived in this way, also has the very desirable property that proposals
or changes in one area have implications elsewhere. It is thus predicted that certain sets of
grammatical properties will typically co-occur.
In "Reflections on Language" (1975) and "Rules and Representations" (Chomsky (1980))
the pair UG --G will also be given a biological interpretation in terms of the pair
"genotype -- phenotype". Language is not acquired in the same way as geography or
learning how to ride a bicycle are learned. Language is part of the human inheritance; it is
in our genes. "The physical basis of UG means that it is part of the human genetic
inheritance, a part of biology" (Cook and Newson, 1996). "Universal Grammar is part of
the genotype specifying one aspect of the initial state of the human mind and brain"
(Chomsky (1980), Rules and Representations). Tied in with the genotype, the phenotype
is defined as the properties of an organism that are produced by the interaction of the
genotype and the environment.
We have seen that it is the concept of "competence" which is fundamental for
understanding Chomsky's views. The conception of grammars as models of competence
signified a shift of focus from the investigation of linguistic behaviour to the study of the
states of the mind which makes the linguistic study possible. Thus the three fundamental
questions for linguistics, as stated by Chomsky in "Knowledge of Language", are the
following:
1. What constitutes knowledge of language? (The prime duty of the linguist is to
describe what people know when they know a language: English, French, Romanian
etc. The answer to this question, in fact, involves the elaboration of a grammar)
2. How is knowledge of language acquired? (The second aim of the linguist is to
discover how people acquire their knowledge of a language. Chomsky's answer to
this is a rationalist theory of language acquisition based on the language faculty).
3. How is knowledge of language put to use? (A third aim would be to see how people
use this acquired language knowledge. The answer to this question would involve a
theory of communication).
Chomsky's formulation of these questions reveals his preoccupation with the foundations
of knowledge, his conviction that one can hardly understand the structure of the object/of
the world, of the cogitatum, unless one has first understood the structure of the epistemic
subject, the function of conscience, therefore, the cogito. Such an intellectual attitude
relates Chomsky to Descartes (by whom he has been acknowledgedly influenced, see his
"Cartesian Linguistics", 1966)
Thus, Chomsky adopts the position of philosophical realism. To embrace a realist
position means to claim that grammar is not a convenient fiction, but a reality of
conscience, represented on the circuits of the brain.
For Chomsky, linguistic research is developed within the frame of individual (cognitive)
psychology. The main assumption is that the truly distinctive and most remarkable
characteristic of the human species is the human cognitive capacity.
The few remarks we have made on Chomsky's realist stance with respect to human
cognitive capacity enable us to go back to the conceptual triplet UG--G--Lg, in the light
of the refinements proposed in KL.
UG is a theory of knowledge of language. UG theory maintains that the speaker knows a
set of principles of maximal generality that apply to all languages. He also knows an
array of parameters that vary within clearly defined limits from one language to another.
UG theory aims at integrating language, mind and grammar.
In the second chapter of "Knowledge of Language" entitled "Concepts of Language" a
new distinction is put forth: that one between Externalized language (E-language) and
Internalized language (I-language).
E-language is language conceived as outside of conscience: "a construct understood
independently of the properties of the mind/brain" (Chomsky, 1986 KL).
E-language can be directly related with the notion of performance defined as " the actual
use of language in concrete situations" (Chomsky (1965), Aspects of the Theory of
Syntax). Such views of interpreting language have been and are still current. Bloomfield
(1933) defined language as "the totality of utterances that can be made in a speech
community". Under the same rubric, we may include the views of structural and
descriptive linguistics and behaviourist psychology which tend to define language as a
collection of actions or utterances, of linguistic forms (words, sentences), perhaps paired
with meaning. Behavioural or sociolinguistic definitions of language, language as a social
institution, as a set of normative practices also belong to understanding language as an Elanguage.
If language is taken in this acceptance, the E-language is understood to be the linguist's
real object of study; grammar is a derivative notion, a collection of descriptive statements
concerning the E-language. "E-language, if it exists at all, is derivative, remote from
mechanisms and of no particular empirical significance, perhaps none at all" (Chomsky
(1991) "Linguistics and adjacent fields: a personal view").
Yet, as Cornilescu (1995) remarked, Chomsky might have been too hard on the notion of
E-language; one should not forget that E-language is that factor of the natural world
which triggers the development of I-language, through the subject's linguistic experience.
Furthermore, although represented in the mind/brain, the grammar is not of the
mind/brain; it is the grammar of an E-language produced under certain circumstances by
the mind/brain. Thus, the grammar (the I-language) objectivizes itself in the E-language.
The concept of E-language is contrasted in KL with that of I-language, defined as a
"system of knowledge of language attained and internally represented in the mind/brain"
(Chomsky, 1986, KL).
Chomsky claims that the history of linguistics shows a shift from an E-language to an Ilanguage approach: "The shift of focus from the dubious concept of E-language to the
significant notion of I-language was a crucial step in early generative grammar"
(Chomsky (1991), Linguistics and adjacent fields: a personal view).
A grammar, which is the study of I-language, describes the speaker's knowledge of
the language and not the sentences he produces (i.e. E-language).
"Linguistics is the study of I-language, and the basis for attaining this knowledge"
(Chomsky (1987), Transformational Grammar: past, present and future).
The similarity with the concept of "competence" is striking. Competence, defined as "the
speaker's/hearer's knowledge of his language", is independent of situation.
"By 'grammatical competence' I mean the cognitive state that encompasses all those
aspects of form and meaning and their relation, which are properly assigned to the
specific subsystem of the human mind that relates representations of form and meaning"
(Chomsky (1980), Rules and Representations).
The system of linguistic knowledge represented by I-language is constructed on the basis
of the speaker's (child's) linguistic experience in terms of initial and final 'states' of the
mind. The initial zero state or SO is the mind of the new-born baby who knows no
language. At the end is the adult native speaker with full knowledge of the language,
when competence is essentially complete. The adult native speaker's knowledge is called
the steady state or SS.
Chomsky takes the initial system of innate knowledge as
represented by the universal grammar (UG). UG is the content of the initial state SO of
the language faculty. "We take an I-language to be an instantion of the initial state"
(Chomsky (1995), Language and Nature).
Acquiring language means progressing from not having any language, SO, to having full
competence, SS (cf.Cook and Newson (1996)).
"A person proceeds from a genetically determined initial state SO through a sequence of
stages S1, S2, …., finally arriving at a "steady state" SS which then seems to change only
marginally " (Chomsky (1980), Rules and Representations) only, say, in the acquisition
of new vocabulary items. The final stage SS consists of a core grammar, which
incorporates the principles and parameters of UG and a mental lexicon.
"UG is construed as the theory of human I-language, a system of conditions deriving
from the human biological endowment that identifies the I-languages that are humanly
accessible under normal conditions" (Chomsky (1986), KL).
We conceive of I-language as modeled (at least in part) by the linguist's grammar (cf.
Horrocks (1987), Cornilescu (1995)).
I-language is the content of the so called "language state" SS attained by the cognitive
faculty of language in a mature speaker.
Despite appearances, Chomsky argues, E-language is a more arbitrary sort of object than
I-language, harder to precisely locate in space or time. Moreover, an E-language is not a
natural kind, the boundaries of the various E-languages are often arbitrarily fixed by
means of socio-political decisions (e.g. Dutch and German (two languages) are much
more similar than various dialects of Chinese (one language)). " We call Dutch a
language and German a different language, but the variety of German spoken near the
Dutch border can be understood by speakers of Dutch who live nearby, though not by
speakers of German in more remote areas. The term "language" as used in ordinary
discourse involves obscure sociopolitical and normative factors" (Chomsky (1988)).
In contrast, I-language is in a sense more real and more clearly delimited through its very
representation in the mind/brain. At the same time, this shift of focus is also, arguably, a
shift towards the common sense, pre-theoretical notion of "knowing a language": to know
a language does not mean to know a collection of utterances (E-language), but to know
the way sound and meaning relate, therefore to know a grammar (including a lexicon) (cf.
Cornilescu). Hence the conclusion that "the fundamental cognitive relation is knowing a
grammar; knowing the language determined by it is derivative" (Chomsky (1975),
Reflections on Language).
Let us make the concept of UG more precise. One could ask the following not unrelated
questions, to which we shall also suggest brief answers in Chomskyan terms:
A. Why is it necessary to postulate the existence of UG and of the language faculty?
B. What kind of object is UG?
C. How do we decide what knowledge from the system of I-language is part of UG
A.
To find an answer to question A we might begin by examining where exactly is
the real-world analogue of the linguist's general theory of grammar assumed to exist.
Chomsky's answer is that, as a result of millions of years of evolution, human beings are
endowed genetically with a faculty of language acquisition. The linguist's theory of UG is
a model of this genetic endowment. The reason why one is brought to the postulation of
UG and the language faculty is that this is the only way we can explain the creative use of
language and especially the process of language acquisition.
Chomsky underlies that the position of the linguist writing a grammar is somewhat
similar to that of a child learning his native language. Both the child and the linguist are
confronted with external data in the given language. The linguist's attempts to formulate
the "rules" of the language and the child, as part of the natural process of growth, will
ultimately construct a mental representation of the grammar of his language.
In his efforts, the linguist is "helped along" by the formal framework offered by UG. A
legitimate question to ask is whether there is anything that the child relies on, in learning
his language and constructing a mental representation of the grammar of his language. In
other words, is there any psychological counterpart of the linguist's UG, in the same way
that the speaker's competence (internalized grammar) is the psychological counterpart of
the linguist's grammar?
Chomsky's strong claim is that the psychological counterpart of UG is the child's
language faculty, which is itself a kind of universal grammar, a component of the child's
mind, part of his genetic endowment. The child's mind is not, Chomsky believes, a "blank
slate" when the child is born. Learning cannot simply proceed by analogy, induction and
generalization.
Chomsky radically departs from empirical theories of learning, embracing the view that
the learning of a complex system like language would be impossible in the absence of
some well-structured innate mental mechanism, which makes language acquisition
possible. The child is thus innately equipped with a universal grammar.
Chomsky's most powerful argument for innateness with respect to learning one's native
language is, as mentioned above, the problem of the poverty of stimulus also known
under the name of Plato's problem (Chomsky (1986), Knowledge of Language).
The question, as formulated by Bertrand Russell, is this: "how comes it that human
beings whose contacts with the world are brief and personal and limited are nevertheless
able to know as much as they do know?" (Chomsky (1986), KL).
Chomsky shows that native speakers have knowledge of grammatical principles that
simply could not have been learned on the basis of generalization from samples of
primary data. An example of the poverty of stimulus is the structure dependence of rules;
the application of many rules depends on certain fairly abstract structures, and this fact
prevents explanation or learning by mere induction or analogy.
Here are some examples (due to Chomsky (1986), KL):
(1)
a. I wonder who [ the meni expected to see themi ]
b. [ The meni expected to see themj ]
(2)
a. John ate an apple.
b. John ate.
c. John is too stubborn to talk to Bill.
d. John is too stubborn to talk to.
Both (1a) and (1b) include the clause marked by brackets but only in (1a) may the
pronoun them be referentially dependent on the antecedent the men (to signal
coreferentiality we coindex the two elements). However, in (1b) the pronoun them cannot
be understood as referring to the men. The reference of the pronoun is determined by the
situational or discourse context (and, consequently, the two elements bear different
indices). Numerous facts of this sort are known without relevant experience that teaches
us to differentiate between them. Yet, every child knows these things unerringly, and no
pedagogical grammar ever draws the learner's attention to such facts.
Turning to examples (2a) and (2b), sentence (2b) means that John ate something; this
something is understood as arbitrary. This fact is explained on the basis of a simple
induction: ate takes an object as in (2a). "John ate" may also simply mean "John dined".
Yet, the same induction does not work in (2c) and (2d). Sentence (2d) does not mean that
John is so stubborn that he (John) will not talk to some person, on the analogy with (2c),
but it has the quite different meaning that John is so stubborn that some arbitrary person
will not talk to him.
Let us take another example analysed by Chomsky in "The Managua Lectures" (1988):
(3)
The man is at home
Sentence (3) can be combined in a more complex structure such as (4):
(4)
The man, who is happy, is at home
These are declarative sentences that make assertions (true or false, depending on the
circumstances in which they are uttered). If we want to derive the interrogative sentence
corresponding to sentence (3), we have to move the verb to the front of the sentences as
in (5) below:
(5)
Is the man at home?
Applying the same procedure to the more complex sentence (4), we obtain the ill-formed
derived question (6):
(6)
*Is the man, who happy, is at home?
Sentence (6) is for sure incorrect and the interrogative to (4) is not (6) but rather (7):
(7) Is the man, who is happy, at home?
The rule of question formation for complex sentences such as (4) is: look for the
occurrence of is (and similar verbs), that is the main verb of the sentence, (the verb of its
main clause), and place it in the front. This example is instructive in that it can be seen
that no rule, which refers simply to the linear order of words, will work. Chomsky's
comments on the fact that the rules of language ignore simple linear order but are
structure dependent are gratifying indeed: "it is important to learn to be surprised by
simple things - for example, by the fact that bodies fall down, not up, and that they fall at
a certain rate; that if pushed, they move on a flat surface in a straight line, not a circle;
and so on. The beginning of science is the recognition that the simplest phenomena of
ordinary life raise quite serious problems: Why are they as they are, instead of some
different way?" (Chomsky (1988)).
Question formation of more complex structures is for sure "a simple but fairly dramatic
case of Plato's problem" (Chomsky (1988)).
Again, children never make errors about such matters and receive no training or reliable
evidence about them. "If children are equipped with minds/brains that are designed to
cope only with grammatical systems that have highly restricted properties, if, in other
words, they are born with in-built knowledge of UG, the process of language learning
will in fact be largely automatic and language-growth might be a more appropriate term.
From this point of view the function of the primary data is not to provide the basis for
learning the grammar of a language ex nihilo; it is simply to provide enough information
for the in-built theory of universal grammar to be particularised to the grammar of the
language of the speech community that the infant lives in" (Horrocks (1987)).
The above types of examples, easily available in any language, allow the formulation of
several important remarks:
1. the first characterizes the status of such knowledge as "knowledge without good
reason or support by reliable procedures" (poverty of stimulus, or Plato's problem).
2. the second refers to the process of language learning. Children have to acquire a
language from evidence they encounter; without any evidence, they will acquire
nothing. Chomsky identified three logically possible types of evidence for
acquisition: children learn from positive evidence (from actually occurring sequences
in the language). The second type of evidence is 'direct negative evidence'
(corrections by the speech community, which tests have proved to be of very little
help, and thus it is not necessary for language acquisition). The third type of evidence
is 'indirect negative evidence'; the fact that certain forms do not occur in the sentences
the children hear may suffice to set a parameter, e.g. an English child, exposed to the
data provided by the speaking community in which he lives will easily learn that
English is a subject oriented language). The acquisition of the first language is better
viewed as a process of maturation which takes place more or less without the
conscious control of the subject. "We had no choice at all as to the language we
acquired, it simply developed in our minds by virtue of our internal constitution and
our environment" (Chomsky (1975), Reflections on Language).
3. thirdly, such examples also shed light on the kind of knowledge that can be supposed
to derive from the principles of UG: on the assumption of uniformity of language
capacity across the species, if a general principle is confirmed for a given language or
for several languages and if, furthermore, there is reason to believe that it is not
learned and surely not taught, then it is proper to postulate that the principle belongs
to UG (cf. Cornilescu).
Therefore, Chomsky's answer to the problem of how language is learned is that of a
mental, biological a priori. "The study of language for Chomsky is an important way of
investigating the structure of the mind and so ultimately of helping to advance knowledge
to the point where a mind/brain distinction becomes unnecessary" (Horrocks (1987)).
One of the faculties of mind common to the human species is the faculty of language.
The faculty of language is an attribute that all people possess. It is indeed held to be
specific to the human species; no other creatures apart from human beings possess a
language organ. Chomsky assumes that language knowledge is independent of other
aspects of mind.
"We may usefully think of the language faculty, the number faculty, and others as 'mental
organs', analogous to the heart or the visual system or the system of motor coordination
and planning" (Chomsky (1980), Rules and Representations).
In the absence of more definite evidence, the uniqueness of language principles (such as
structure dependency) bears on an independent, autonomous area of the mind devoted to
language knowledge.
Language faculty is a separate compartment from other mental faculties such as
mathematics, vision, logic, a.s.o. The conception of modularity of mind resembles the
19th century tradition of "faculty" psychology which also divided the mind into
autonomous areas (Fodor, 1983).
"UG is a theory only of the language module which has its own set of principles distinct
from other modules and does not inter-relate with them" (Cook and Newson (1996),
Chomsky's Universal Grammar).
"The theory of language is simply that part of human psychology that is concerned with
one particular "mental organ", the "human language", and "the study of language falls
naturally within human biology" (Chomsky (1976), ‘Reflections on Language’).
Thus, language faculty serves two basic functions: it provides a sensory system for the
analysis of the linguistic data and a schematism (the innate UG) that determines a class of
grammars, defining possible human languages.
So, in a sense, Chomsky argues, with an acknowledged Platonic overtones, that it is not
that we attain so much knowledge, but rather that we recover what was already known,
activating this knowledge through experience.
Given appropriate experience the language faculty passes from the state SO to the
relatively steady SS ,
the
state of knowing a particular language. UG is the theory of the
content of SO ; particular grammars are theories of various I-languages that can be
attained with SO fixed and, experience varying, each of them determining particular Elanguages.
B.
As to its status, UG (as content of SO ) is an ideal object which can be described as
the set of conditions governing the possibility of the object (language) as well as any of
its actualisations. UG is a genotype, a function mapping various courses of experience
into particular phenotypes (particular) I-languages (grammars).
C.
The UG that the linguist postulates, (as a theory of SO) contains the set of principles
and elements of any acquired system of linguistic knowledge. At the current stage in the
evolution of GG--parametric grammar (or the "Government and Binding Theory",
Chomsky (1981)), UG is described as a system of principles and parameters, which
determine the general properties of representations of the assumed linguistic levels.
What the linguist is seeking is a system of unifying principles that is fairly rich in
deductive structure, but with parameters to be fixed by experience. The devices provided
by UG must meet two conflicting requirements:
1. they must be rich enough descriptively to account for the attested variety of
languages;
2. they must be sufficiently constrained and restrictive, so that to account for the
acquisition of various languages on the basis of a limited evidence that leaves
important problems underdetermined.
As currently conceived, UG includes the following (among others):
1. general principles regarding the form of the grammar, first and foremost the
specification of the assumed levels of representation.
D - Structure
↓
S - Structure
↓
↓
Logical
Phonological
form
form
UG also specifies the several modules (subtheories) that make up the grammar, among
which we mention the following:
a. X-bar theory, which is the study of the relations between a head element and a
subordinate one; X-bar theory also defines a phrase structure grammar (Chomsky
(1981), Emonds (1985).
b. the modules of Binding Theory and Control Theory study the referential relations
between various sorts of pronouns and their linguistic antecedents. The referential
problems of examples (6) and (7) above would fall under Binding Theory.
c. Case Theory studies the problem of how case is assigned to Noun Phrases.
d. The Theory of Thematic Roles deals with the interpretation of Noun Phrases as
arguments of predicates, function of such conceptual roles as Agent, Theme,
Experiencer.
UG also contains a set of concepts of high generality. These are the concepts that relate
the various subcategories (e.g. 'government', 'binding', etc.). UG also includes a set of
phonological features in terms of which the phonemes of various languages are
constructed. And it also provides a set of syntactic features like ± Noun, ± Verb a.s.o.,
which underlie the definition of the lexical categories (Noun, Verb, Adjective, etc.) and
grammatical categories (Noun Phrase [NP], Verb Phrase [VP], etc.)
Within each subcategory there are general principles that belong to UG and which may
define parameters, that is dimensions of variability across languages; learning a language
is a matter of fixing those parameters in a certain way through experience.
The theory is an interlocking arrangement of principles and sub-theories that interact in
various ways. Moreover, in a theory of this kind, particular grammatical rules such as
'"passive" or "question formation" are no longer treated and explained in isolation but
represent the interaction of principles and particular parameter settings.
The important thing is that the assumptions one makes about UG should have empirical
content, i.e. they should be falsifiable. The approach in terms of principles and
parameters is more flexible, having higher explanatory power; the modularity of grammar
reflects a more general presupposition regarding the modularity of mind.