Structuring Sense: Volume I: In Name Only (Oxford Linguistics) - Hardcover

Borer, Hagit

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199263892 ISBN 13: 9780199263899

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Structuring Sense explores the difference between words however defined and structures however constructed. It sets out to demonstrate over three volumes, of which this is the first, that the explanation of linguistic competence should be shifted from lexical entry to syntactic structure, from memory of words to manipulation of rules. Its reformulation of how grammar and lexicon interact has profound implications for linguistic, philosophical, and psychological theories about human mind and language.

Hagit Borer departs from both constructional approaches to syntax and the long generative tradition that uses the word as the nucleus around which the syntax grows. She argues that the hierarchical, abstract structures of language are universal, not language specific, and that language variation emerges from the morphological and phonological properties of inflectional material.

About this title

About the Author

Hagit Borer received her Ph.D. in Linguistics at MIT in 1981. She has held positions at the University of California at Irvine and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and is currently the chair of the linguistics department at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include syntax, morphosyntax, the syntax-semantics interface, and the acquisition of syntax.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199263892
• ISBN 13: 9780199263899
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328