Direct Compositionality

by Chris Barker (Editor), Pauline I. Jacobson (Editor)

This book examines the hypothesis of "direct compositionality", which requires that semantic interpretation proceed in tandem with syntactic combination. Although associated with the dominant view in formal semantics of the 1970s and 1980s, the feasibility of direct compositionality remained unsettled, and more recently the discussion as to whether or not this view can be maintained has receded. The syntax-semantics interaction is now often seen as a process in which the syntax builds representations which, at the abstract level of logical form, are sent for interpretation to the semantics component of the language faculty. In the first extended discussion of the hypothesis of direct compositionality for twenty years, this book considers whether its abandonment might have been premature and whether in fact direct compositionality is not after all a simpler and more effective conception of the grammar than the conventional account of the syntax-semantics interface in generative
grammar. It contains contributions from both sides of the debate, locates the debate in the setting of a variety of formal theories, and draws on examples from a range of languages and a range of empirical phenomena.

448 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Nick Black]

I was looking around for this great quote of Freeman Dyson's:

Dirac had a weird version of quantum theory in which every state had probability either plus two or minus two. Probability, as common sense defines it, is a number between zero and one expressing our degree of confidence that an event will happen. Probability one means that the event always happens; probability zero means that it never happens. In Dirac's Alice-in-Wonderland world, every state happens either more often than always or less often than never.

That's an awesome quote which doesn't get nearly as much play as it deserves. Anyway, I stumbled upon Chris Barker's page at the NYU Department of Linguistics, and was pretty thoroughly impressed (despite being bloodsworn to loathe NYU; there's a petulant and uninteresting story about a girl here). The table of contents, with excerpts like:

6. Jacobson Direct Compositionality and Variable Free Semantics: the Case of "Principle B" Effects
7. Caponigro & Heller The Non Concealed Nature of Free Relatives: Implications for Connectivity in Specificational Sentences
8. Romero Connectivity in a Unified Analysis of Specificational Subjects and Concealed Questions
9. Bhatt & Pancheva Degree Quantifiers, Position of Merger Effects with their Restrictors, and Conservativity
10. Sharvit Two Reconstruction Puzzles

is promisingly bewildering (what the devil is a merger effect?) yet also disturbingly familiar enough to inspire worry -- what if everyone else in my lab already knows about and makes rakish use of "free relatives"?

Ahh, professional research: all the wide-eyed wonder of childhood, now with fearful glances over your shoulder...and running Nx faster means the herd's now working on N+1.

[Anie]

The problem: I just can't keep my attention on this. Abandoned, this day of 3 August 2013.