Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction

Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction is unlike any other introductory textbook on the market; it marks a return to 'generative grammar' in its original sense. This book focuses on the development of precisely formulated grammars whose empirical predictions can be directly tested. There is considerable emphasis on prediction and evaluation of grammatical hypotheses, as well as on integrating syntactic hypotheses with matters of semantic analysis. Problem solving is also emphasized; the extensive problem sets draw from a variety of languages other than English. Special attention is paid to the nature of lexical entries and the organization of the lexicon in terms of type hierarchies and constraint inheritance. The theoretical perspective of the book is presented in the context of current models of language processing, which provide motivation for a constraint-based, lexicalist grammatical architecture, whose value has already been demonstrated in computer language processing applications.

Ivan A. Sag (1949-2013) was professor of linguistics at Stanford University. He was the author of Syntactic Theory, 2nd Edition, German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Interrogative Investigations, Sign-Based Construction Grammar, and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar.