Abstract
The need to add constraints to the theory of transformational grammar has been one (perhaps the) central goal of research by generative grammarians over the last decade. A number of important proposals have resulted from this research, most notably those due to Bresnan (1976), Chomsky (1973), Culicover and Wexler (1977), Emonds (1976), and Ross (1967). The first section of this paper is devoted to distinguishing between and considering the relative merits of two different views of the purpose of such constraints. The second and third sections attempt to add substance to my position by showing how progress towards the goals defended in the first section can be achieved.
A great many people have given me extremely valuable suggestions which affected the final form of this paper. I wish to especially thank Noam Chomsky and Dan Osherson both for getting me thinking about the issues in this paper in the way that I do, and for giving me very detailed and helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper. I am also indebted to the following people for useful comments: Emmon Bach, Eve Clark, Herb Clark, David Evans, Vicki Fromkin, Ron Kaplan, Steve Lapointe, Julius Moravcsik, Dick Oehrle, Barbara Partee, Bill Paxton, Stan Peters, Tom Roeper, Justine Stillings, and Steve Weisler. Any shortcomings are of course my responsibility.
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Wasow, T. (1978). On Constraining the Class of Transformational Languages. In: Savitch, W.J., Bach, E., Marsh, W., Safran-Naveh, G. (eds) The Formal Complexity of Natural Language. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3401-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3401-6_4
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