Notes from the Linguistic Underground

Syntax and Semantics, Volume 7: Notes from the Linguistic Underground is a collection of articles that were written in the 1960s, which has never before appeared in a regular, English language publication. The papers contained in this compendium provide the history and information on the development of transformational grammar and generative semantics. The book presents articles that discuss topics on reflexivization, transformations, past tense replacement and the modal system, and pro-sentential forms and their implications for English sentence structure. Papers that tackle syntactic orientation, some constraints on pronominalization, discourse referents, and the verb-object agreement rule and the wh-movement rule in Hungarian are likewise included. Linguists and linguistic historians will find the book invaluable.

List of ContributorsForewordContents of Previous VolumesIntroduction1. Optical Illusions and Grammar Blindness2. What Are Transformations?3. Toward Generative Semantics I. A Critique of Some Present Notions about Meaning II. The Generative Approach4. Reflexivization 63 Reflexivization I Reflexivization II5. Past Tense Replacement and the Modal System6. Why You Can't Do So Into the Sink A. Background B. A Test7. Concerning the Notion "Base Component of a Transformational Grammar"8. Mind and Body i. Physical and Mental Predicates ii. Selectional Restrictions iii. Statements about Perception iv. Identification of Particulars v. Ownership vi. Mind-Body Influence vii. Body-Mind Influence 1974 Comments9. Is Deep Structure Necessary?10. Pro-Sentential Forms and Their Implications for English Sentence Structure11. Linguistic Anarchy Notes Introduction Series A: Horrors of Identity Series F: That Much-Beloved Semantics-Free Syntax12. Linguistic Harmony Notes Series A: Charms of Identity13. On the Historical Source of Immediate Constituent Analysis14. More Evidence for a Cycle of Transformations?15. Camelot, 1968 I. Introduction II. Current Status of the Base Component III. Selectional Anomaly IV. The Implications of Semantax: Lexical Insertion, the Notion "Possible Lexical Item," the Well-Formedness of Underlying Structures16. Pronouns and Reference 1. Some Constraints on Pronominalization 2. Types of Linguistic Identity17. Cryptic Note II and WAGS III Cryptic Note II: Again, and then Again...WAGS III18. Syntactic Orientation as a Semantic Property19. Discourse Referents 0. Introduction 1. Case Studies 2. Specificity 3. Summary20. Some Notes on English Modals Will Can Must21. The 23 Verbs pretend22. On a Surface Structure Constraint in HungarianGlossaryReferencesIndex