Bare Grammar: A Study of Language Invariants (Stanford Monographs in Linguistics) - Hardcover

Keenan, Edward L.; Stabler, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1575861895 ISBN 13: 9781575861890

Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf, 2002

Synopsis

Drawing on general algebraic notions of structure and symmetry, this volume explores the invariants of generative grammars, showing how structural notions in generative grammar are provably invariant in grammars, and specific morphemes are invariant in exactly the same sense in languages that have them.

Edward Keenan and Edward Stabler’s analysis illustrates how relations such as the anaphor-antecedent relation can be invariant in all grammars, even if realized differently in different languages, and it argues that the existence of universal invariants does not assume that grammars of different languages are isomorphic. Bare Grammar ultimately concludes that the relation between form and meaning is not entirely arbitrary.

About this title

Book Description

Without assuming arbitrary restrictions on grammar notation at the outset, 'Bare Grammars' aim to provide the most straightforward definitions of the constructions present in human languages, together with a compositional semantics.

About the Author

Edward L. Keenan is professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1575861895
• ISBN 13: 9781575861890
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 219