Generative Grammar and European Linguistics

Abstract

The development of the theory of generative grammar during the past fifteen years has led not only to considerable improvements in successive stages, but also to alternative proposals with respect to certain problems of theoretical interest. This concerns in particular the relation between syntax and semantics, where at present at least three different approaches are under lively discussion. None of these alternatives, investigating different possibilities within the general framework of generative transformational grammar, can be taken, however, as representing a separate ‘school’. It is also impossible to localize them in any geographical sense. They are simply detailed explorations of alternative hypotheses necessary for an empirically motivated clarification and extension of the theory under discussion. This leads to certain difficulties in the delimitation of the subject matter for the present chapter. Although since the early sixties an increasing number of linguists in Europe have been attracted by the theory of generative grammar, they do not form in any serious sense a particular trend or school or anything of this kind that could be contrasted to corresponding research done elsewhere in the world. Hence the heading Generative Grammar in Western Europe does not specify a coherent and selfcontained topic. It would thus be a rather extrinsic approach to the subject of the present paper, if I simply tried to report on some European contributions to research based on the principles of generative grammar.

Reprinted from Thomas A. Sebeok (ed): Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. IX. Copyright by Mouton & Co., The Hague.