Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation

by Robert May

This study focuses on the relation of syntactic and semantic structure. It investigates the notion that within generative grammar there is a level of linguistic representation Logical Form. Its main assumption is that this is a level of phrase structure representation, derived by transformational operations from S-structure, and over which formal semantic interpretations are defined. The book explores Logical Form by focusing primarily on quantificational phenomena and on how their explicit syntactic representation interacts with various syntactic and semantic properties. Among the topics discussed are the interactions of wh and quantified phrases, bound variable anaphora, branching quantifiers, extraposition and multiple interrogation. Logical Form contains several technical innovations: the notion that LF-movement closely approximates "Move α," a new approach to characterizing quantifier scope, which makes central use of the notion of "government," a novel interpretation of the relation of syntactic nodes and categorical projections, and an application of path theory to the syntactic structure of Logical Form. Robert May is Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Barnard College, Columbia University. Logical Form is Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 12.

Genres: Linguistics

194 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 1985

About the author

Robert May is a professor of philosophy at UC Davis, concerned with philosophy of language and logic, analytic philosophy, and linguistic theory.


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Reviews

[Anie]

Officially abandoned this day, the 15th of December 2012.

It's not that this book is bad. It's not. However, it's at this point irrelevant as anything other than tracing the history of LF and movement for quantification. I got about halfway through, could see all the problems with the theory, and just got---well---bored. I've not got time right now for the history of LF, I need actual useful things about LF! Maybe I'll come back to it one day, but for now, it gets to sit on the shelf.