The purpose of this monograph is to provide a basic discussion of the general nature of syntactic complexity. The monograph describes how the rules of language produce syntax and raises some questions about reading difficulty. The contents include: "Arrangement," which discusses 12 basic sentence types, noun determiners, verb expansions, negative…

The present study analyzes the "ing" forms that follow deictic verbs of movement, including "go,""come,""take,""bring," and "carry." Many examples are given to support the theory that the "ing" forms are not verbs or nouns, but rahter adverbials and that these adverbials are members of a class that refers to activities characterized by certain…

This paper is a syntactic analysis of standard French negation. The following expressions are described in detail: (1)ne...pas(point), (2)nullement (aucunement), (3)plus, (4)jamais, (5)pas encore, (6)guere, (7)rien, (8)personne, (9)aucun(e), (10)nul(le), (11)ni...ni..., (12)nulle part, (13)que, (14)pas un(e), (15)nul. The negative expressions are…

This paper is a study of the subclassification of English verbs in generative grammar. It is intended to discuss the subclassification of English verbs in terms of complement types and to investigate the problem of nonlocalization in complement constructions. Some verbs permit a "whether"-complement or a "that"-complement if…

This article attempts to refute D.M. Perlmutter's claim that the syntactic component in Spanish grammar can generate structures that are grammatical at the deep structure level but not at the surface structure level, and that it is necessary to impose a surface structure constraint (SSC) as a filter to reject the ungrammatical structures. The…

The following articles on syntax and semantics were researched at the Harvard Syntax Workshop: (1) "Clause Reduction in Spanish," by Judith Aissen and David Perlmutter; (2) "Reduced WH-Questions," by Robin Bechhofer; (3) "Reduction in Conjoined WH-Questions," by Robin Bechhofer; (4) "On Subject-to-Object Raising…

Two approaches to the problem of determining the illocutionary force(s) of a sentence are examined: Gordon and Lakoff's (1971) "Conversational Postulates," and Fraser's (1973) "On Accounting for Illocutionary Forces"; their relation to Searle's conditions is discussed. It is argued that Gordon and Lakoff's analysis can be…

A history of theories of transformational generative grammar is presented, and four theories are characterized as: Chomsky's initial theory, Chomsky's standard theory, the semantically-based theory, and finally Chomsky's nonstandard theory. The main issue appears to be the question of what determines sentence meaning. Specifically, it is stated…

This book presents a guide to syntax in the Hungarian language. It is intended for students and researchers working on syntax and those interested in Finno-Ugric languages. It describes the key grammatical features of the language, focusing on the phenomena that have proven to be theoretically the most relevant and that have attracted the most…

A comparison of the syntactic characteristics of mathematical equations and Eskimo syntax is made, and a proposal that Eskimo has a level of structure similar to that of equations is described. P:t performative contrast is reanalyzed. Questions and speculations on the formal treatment of this type of structure in transformational grammar, and its…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how languages express contrastive emphasis. It is argued that all contrastively emphasized constructions have underlying cleft sentences, independent of whether the surface structure is an equational or a nonequational one. It is furthermore argued that emphatic word orders are systematic and predictable…

This reference grammar of Japanese is divided into thirty-one major sections: (1) notational conventions, including spelling, punctuation, accent, and juncture; (2) sentence construction: nuclear sentences and expanded sentences; (3) predicate adjuncts; (4) expansion constraints and noun subcategorization; (5) voice conversions; (6) nuclear focus…

The syntactic relationship between the quantifier and the noun phrase (NP) and the function of the quantifier in the sentence are studied. In the first part of the paper, the theories of several linguists concerning the structure of the NP that includes a quantifier are reviewed. In parts 2 and 3 a syntactic description of the quantifier is…

A group of studies on child language development between ages 2 and 3 is presented. The studies, originally published between 1970 and 1989, are the result of a longitudinal research program. An introductory section describes the contents, offers background information on several different perspectives (developmental, learnability, cross-cultural)…

This paper is concerned with the treatment of anaphoric phenomena in a semantically based transformation grammar. It is argued that account of anaphora in terms of coreference are no better than accounts in terms of identical NPs; instead, it is proposed that a unified account of anaphora, which covers both quantified and unquantified NPs, may be…