universal syntax

Wayne Leman wleman at mcn.net
Fri Oct 27 10:18:25 EDT 2000


OK, Mark, I understand what you are saying. I started my linguistics
training on
Chomsky 1965. Over the years I have come to see more and more problems with
C's theoretical approach and am now a functionalist. I now find the
similarities between languages at a cognitive level, rather than at a
notational level. Empirically, it often comes out about the same, but not
always.

Greek word order is pragmatically determined. I find it more satisfying to
find the real explanations for such ordering in principles of cognition,
communicative choice, etc., but if P&P theory, constituency structure
theory, X-Bar
theory, Binding, or similar theoretical models will account for the same
data through labeling structures, then it's OK with me, as long as we still
account for
the data accurately.

This is interesting for me, but I suspect it is not for the majority of
B-Greek members so I think this will need to be my last post on this topic.
We can move the discussion over to Funknet or another linguistics list, or
private email, if need be.

Wayne



> Dear Wayne,
>
> I just sent the following message to Daniel with the hope that it will
> clarify my ideas.  My use of the term "universal syntax" was a general
> descriptive term not a technical term.  I would appreciate any feedback:

<snip>

> Mark Beatty





More information about the B-Greek mailing list