Surface Structure and Interpretation

by Mark Steedman

Combinatory Categorial Grammar (C.C.G.) offers a new approach to the theory of natural language grammar. Coordination, relativization, and related prosodic phenomena have been analyzed in C.C.G. in terms of a radically revised notion of surface structure. C.C.G. surface structures do not exhibit traditional notions of syntactic dominance and command, and do not constitute an autonomous level of representation. Instead, they reflect the computations by which a sentence may be realized or analyzed, to synchronously define a predicate-argument structure, or logical form. Surface Structure and Interpretation shows that binding and control can be captured at this level, preserving the advantages of C.C.G. as an account of coordination and unbounded dependency. The core of the book is a detailed treatment of extraction, a focus of syntactic research since the early work of Chomsky and Ross. The topics addressed include the sources of subject-object asymmetries and phenomena attributed to the Empty Category Principle (E.C.P.), asymmetric islands, parasitic gaps, and the relation of coordination and extraction, including their interactions with binding theory. In his conclusion, the author relates C.C.G. to other categorial and type-driven approaches and to proposals for minimalism in linguistic theory.Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 30

Genres: Language

140 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 1996