Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs) - Softcover

May, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262631024 ISBN 13: 9780262631020

Publisher: MIT Press, 1985

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Robert May is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Fiengo and May are the authors of Indices and Identity (MIT Press, 1994).

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262631024
• ISBN 13: 9780262631020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 194