Re: LANG: Lojban/AL (fwd)

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 12:23:08 +1000


At 01:58 PM 1/28/97 +1000, Mitchell Porter wrote

>By a "Chomsky menu", do you mean a set of recursive substitution rules
>(of the form "noun" -> "noun phrase") which go together to define a
>grammar?

X-bar theory, yes, that sorta thang. And whether ergativity is optional or
built-in.

Pretty much everything I know about Chomskyan grammar - bugger-all, sadly -
comes from Steven Pinker's wonderful popularisation THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT
(William Morrow, 1994), plus some baffled dipping into the theory of
government and binding (*not* part of Chomsky's anarchist writings)...

By the way, people whoinsist on (mis)using the term `deep structure' when
they mean `universal grammar' (certainly not you, Mitch) should know that
it's chic these days to use `d-structure' instead.

Damien Broderick