This book provides an in-depth history of the transformational Generative theory of grammar, from Chomsky's seminal The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955) to ongoing work in the Minimalist Program, with a primary focus on the evolution of technical aspects of the theory of syntax. It outlines the changes that Generative syntax has undergone in this period, and shows not only how these changes relate to the internal dynamics of the field, but also how the Generative enterprise relates to other theories of natural and formal languages. Comparisons between these approaches help to place Generative grammar in its historical and methodological context, and to show which current theories are compatible with other formalisms and which are not. The aim of the book is twofold: to provide students with the necessary tools to access specialized texts and primary sources in any of the Generative transformational models, and to offer experienced linguists a reference work documenting the many different developments in the theory.

What is the most descriptively and explanatorily adequate format for syntactic structures and how are they constrained? Different theories of syntax have provided various answers: sets, feature structures, tree diagrams… Building on formal and empirical insights from a wide variety of approaches spanning more than 70 years (including Transformational Grammar, Relational Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, and Tree Adjoining Grammar), this monograph develops a new, mathematically grounded, framework in which objects known as graphs, and the constraints that follow from them, are argued to provide the best characterisation of the system of expressions and relations that make up natural language grammars. This new approach is motivated and exemplified via detailed and formally explicit analyses of major syntactic phenomena in English and Spanish.

This book provides an in-depth history of the transformational Generative theory of grammar, from Chomsky's seminal The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1955) to ongoing work in the Minimalist Program, with a primary focus on the evolution of technical aspects of the theory of syntax. It outlines the changes that Generative syntax has undergone in this period, and shows not only how these changes relate to the internal dynamics of the field, but also how the Generative enterprise relates to other theories of natural and formal languages. Comparisons between these approaches help to place Generative grammar in its historical and methodological context, and to show which current theories are compatible with other formalisms and which are not. The aim of the book is twofold: to provide students with the necessary tools to access specialized texts and primary sources in any of the Generative transformational models, and to offer experienced linguists a reference work documenting the many different developments in the theory.

What is the most descriptively and explanatorily adequate format for syntactic structures and how are they constrained? Different theories of syntax have provided various answers: sets, feature structures, tree diagrams… Building on formal and empirical insights from a wide variety of approaches spanning more than 70 years (including Transformational Grammar, Relational Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, and Tree Adjoining Grammar), this monograph develops a new, mathematically grounded, framework in which objects known as graphs, and the constraints that follow from them, are argued to provide the best characterisation of the system of expressions and relations that make up natural language grammars. This new approach is motivated and exemplified via detailed and formally explicit analyses of major syntactic phenomena in English and Spanish.