Cover not available
Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 25:3 (1998) ► pp.345–372

On comparing linguistic theories

Further notes on the generative semantics/interpretive semantics debate in American linguistics

 | The University of Chicago Press
 | The University of Chicago
The article examines several issues raised in recent critiques of Ideology and Linguistic Theory (Huck & Goldsmith 1995) and finds no reason either to reject or to revise the original conclusion that Interpretivist arguments purporting to establish the superiority of Interpretive Semantics over Generative Semantics were weak and were justifiably dismissed by proponents of the latter. It also briefly discusses the particular use of the term ‘ideology’ and its application in an analysis of linguistic thought.
Published online: 1 January 1998
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.25.3.07huc
References (74)
References
Ballard, Dana. 1997. An Introduction to Natural Computation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, Christopher M. 1995. Pattern Recognition. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Boudon, Raymond. 1986. L’idéologie ou l’origine des idées reçues. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1964. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 1968. “The Formal Nature of Language”. Biological Foundations of Language by Eric Lenneberg, 397–442. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
. 1972a. “Some Empirical Issues in the Theory of Transformational Grammar”. Goals of Linguistic Theory ed. by Stanley Peters, 63–130. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. (Repr. in Chomsky 1972b: 120–202. [Page references to the reprinted version].)Google Scholar
. 1972b. Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1975. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
. 1995. The Minimaist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam & Morris Halle. 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
De Mareken, Carl. 1996. The Unsupervised Acquisition of a Lexicon from Continuous Speech. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph. 1969. “A Structure-Preserving Constraint on NP Movement Transformations”. Proceedings of the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 60–65. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
. 1970. Root and Structure Preserving Transforattions. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
. 1976. A Transformaional Approach to English Syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles. 1985. Mental Spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Repr., Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994.)Google Scholar
Fogelman-Soulié, Françoise. 1994. Les théories de la complexité: Autour de l’ oeuvre de Henri Atlan Dir. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Freidin, Robert. 1997. Review of Huck & Goldsmith (1995). Anthropological Linguistics 391:494–501.Google Scholar
Gold, E. M. 1967. “Language Identification in the Limit”. Information and Control 101.447–474. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, John A. 1976. Autosegmental Phonology. MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
1989. “Autosegmental Licensing, Inalterability, and Harmonic Rule Application”. Papers from the 25th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 145–156. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Soceity.Google Scholar
1990. Autosegmental and Metrical Phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
1993a. “Harmonic Phonology”. Goldsmith 1993b.21–60.Google Scholar
, ed. 1993b. The Last Phonological Rule: Reflections on constraints and derivations. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, John A. & Geoffrey J. Huck. 1991. “Distribution et médiation dans la théorie linguistique”. Communications 531.51–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, Georgia M. 1970. “How Abstract Is Surface Structure?”. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 270–281. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
1974[1971]. Semantics and Syntactic Regularity. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Huck, Geoffrey J. & John A. Goldsmith. 1994. “Gaps in the Paradigm”. Contemporary Linguistics 11.1–55.Google Scholar
Huck, Geoffrey J.. & John A. Goldsmith. 1995. Ideology and Linguistic Theory: Noam Chomsky and the Deep Structure Debates. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hull, David L. 1988. Science as a Process: An evolutionary account of the social and conceptual development of science. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 1992. “Antecedent Contained Deletion in a Variable Free Semantics”. Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory ed. by C. Barker & David Dowty. Columbus, Ohio: Dept. of Linguistics, Ohio State Univ.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katz, Jerrold J. 1981. Language and Other Abstract Objects. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. “Phonological Representations”. Three Dimensions of Linguistic Theory ed. by Osamu Fujimura, 1–136. Tokyo: TEC.Google Scholar
Kisseberth, Charles W. 1970a. “On the Functional Unity of Phonological Rules”. Linguistic Inquiry 11:291–306.Google Scholar
1970b. “Vowel Elision in Tonkawa and Derivational Contraints”. Studies Presented to Robert B. Lees by his Students ed. by Jerrold M. Sadock & Anthony L. Vanek, 109–137. Champaign, 111.: Linguistic Research.Google Scholar
Klima, Edward. 1964. “Negation in English”. The Structure of Language ed. by Jerry A. Fodor & Jerrold J. Katz, 246–323. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1970[1965]. Irregularity in Syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
. 1971a. “On Generative Semantics”. Semantics ed. by Danny D. Steinberg & Leon A. Jakobovits, 232–296. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
. 1975b. “Linguistics and Natural Logic”. Semantics of Natural Language ed. by Donald Davidson & Gilbert Harman, vol.11, 545–565. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George & John Robert Ross. 1976[1967]. “Is Deep Structure Necessary?”. McCawley 1976a. 159–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1968. Abstract Syntax and Latin Complementation. Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Li, Ming & Paul Vitànyi. 1993. An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications. New York: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lovins, Julie. 1971. “Melodic Conspiracies in Lomongo Tonology”. Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 469–478. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
May, Robert. 1985. Logical Form: Its structure and derivation. (= Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 12.) Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1968[1967]. “The Role of Semantics in a Grammar”. Univer-sals in Linguistic Theory ed. by Emmon Bach & Robert Harms, 124–169. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. (Repr. in McCawley 1973:59–98 [page references to this version].)Google Scholar
1971. “Interpretive Semantics Meets Frankenstein”. Foundations of Language 71.285–296. (Repr. in McCawley 1973:333–342 [page references to this version].)Google Scholar
1973. Grammar and Meaning: Papers on syntactic and semantic topics. Tokyo: Taishukan.Google Scholar
1975. Review of Chomsky (1972b). Studies in English Linguistics 31.209311. (Reprinted in McCawley’s Thirty Million Theories of Grammar, 10–127. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1982.)Google Scholar
, ed. 1976a. Notes from the Linguistic Underground. (= Syntax and Semantics, 7.) New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1976b. “Some Ideas not to Live by”. Die neueren Sprachen 751.151–165. (Reprinted in the author’s Adverbs, Vowels, and Other Objects of Wonder, 234–46. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1979.)Google Scholar
1988. The Syntactic Phenomena of English. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. (2nd rev. ed., 1998.)Google Scholar
1998. Review of Newmeyer (1995). Ms., Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Chicago.Google Scholar
Milsark, Gary. 1972. “Re: Doubl-ing”. Linguistic Inquiry 31.542–549.Google Scholar
Montague, Richard. 1973. “The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English”. Formal Philosophy: Selected papers of Richard Montague ed. by Richmond Thomason, 247–270. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Jerry 1973. Presupposition and Semantic Representation: Prolegomena. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Chicago.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 1980. Linguistic Theory in America: The first quarter-century of transformaional generative grammar. New York: Academic Press. [Revised 2nd ed. published in 1986 without a subtitle.]Google Scholar
1995. Generative Linguistics: A historical perspective. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Niyogi, Partha & Robert C. Berwick. 1996. “A Language Learning Model for Finite Parameter Spaces”. Cognition 611.161–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oehrle, Richard T. 1976. The Grammaical Status of the English Dative Alternation. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
1977. Review of Green (1974). Language 531.198–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perlmutter, David M. 1971 [1968]. Deep and Surface Structure Constraints in Syntax. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul. 1972. “The Best Theory”. The Goals of Linguistic Theory ed. by Stanley Peters, 131–170. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky. Forthcoming. Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar.
Rissanen, Jorma. 1989. Stochastic Complexity in Statistical Inquiry. Singapore & River Edge, N.J.: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Rissanen, Jorma & Eric Sven Ristad. 1994. “Language Acquisition in the MDL Framework”. Language Computations ed. by E. S. Ristad, 127–166. Philadelphia: American Mathematical Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roca, Iggy, ed. 1997. Derivations and Constraints in Phonology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Ross, John Robert. 1967. Constraints on Variables in Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. [Published in 1986 as Infinite Syntax!, Norwood: Ablex.]Google Scholar
. 1972. “Doubl-ing”. Linguistic Inquiry 31.61–86.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold. [c. 1972]. Generative Semantics. Ms., Dept. of Linguistics, Univ. of Chicago.Google Scholar
Shannon, Claude & Warren Weaver. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Raj. 1987. “Well-Formedness Conditions and Phonological Theory”. Phonological Yearbook 1984, 273–286. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Sommerstein, Alan. 1974. “On Phonotactically Motivated Rules”. Journal of Linguistics 101.71–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Fortis, Jean-Michel
2011. La notion de grammaire usage-based chez Langacker. Emergence et développement. Travaux de linguistique n°62:1 ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Martin-Nielsen, Janet
2010. Redefining what matters: Syntactic explanation in American linguistics, 1955-1970. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 55:3 ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo
Koerner, E.F.K.
2009. Koerner’s Korner. Historiographia Linguistica 36:2-3 ► pp. 481 ff. DOI logo
Golumbia, David
2004. The interpretation of nonconfigurationality. Language & Communication 24:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Frames of Understanding in Text and Discourse [Human Cognitive Processing, 48], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.