1
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2
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- It made grammar less abstract by holding part of speech constant during
derivations
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3
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- “The only purpose of x-bar syntax seemed to be to prop up the
lexicalist hypothesis, and the only purpose of the lexicalist hypothesis
seemed to be to undermine abstract syntax” (p. 142).
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4
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- Postal, Lakoff, Ross, and McCawley
- “Lakoff and Ross, we have seen, were the evangelical salesmen, taking
generative semantics to the consumers.
McCawley . . . was the den mother, rearing the second generation
of generative semanticists in Chicago.
Postal was the big gun” (p. 147).
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5
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- 2a. His criticizing the book before he read it annoyed me.
- 2b. His criticism of the book before he read it was strangely
insightful.
- It “indicates that speakers who fail to distinguish [2b] from [2a] are
not aware of a property of their internalized grammar” (Chomsky, p. 142)
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6
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- “I will not consider Reichling’s criticisms of generative grammar
here. The cited remark is just
one illustration of his complete lack of comprehension of the goals,
concerns, and specific content of the work he was discussing, and his
discussion is based on such gross misrepresentations of this work that
comment is hardly called for” (Chomsky, p. 143).
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7
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8
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- Transformations change meaning, but minimally.
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9
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- “Postal’s paper makes an unbudging
but straightforward Ockham’s-razor case for the strong
theoretical priority of generative semantics over more complex models,
especially all versions of interpretive semantics, with a few aspersions
and digressive counter-arguments thrown in” (p. 149).
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10
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- “Two languages are spoken on Cormorant Island.”
- 2 Deep Structures; transformations affected meaning
- Does the passive voice change meaning?
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11
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- Says that transformations have no semantic impact.
- Cormorant Island: “Everybody on Cormorant Island speaks two languages.”
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12
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- Chomsky couldn’t explain it.
- Generative Semantics broke off.
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13
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- The difficulty is that if you start with meaning, you must find a way to
represent it.
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14
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- Undefined Terms – e.g., word, language
- Unproven Axioms
- Undemonstrated Methods of Proof
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