Discussion Details
| Title: | Review of 'Chomsky's Minimalism' |
| Submitter: | Michael Maxwell |
| Description: | In response to the comments on whether syntax comes before semantics (in
the context of the review of ''Chomsky's Minimalism'', see link below), I suspect that this is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the arrows. The arrows refer to a derivational relationship, not a temporal one. In this respect, they are similar to the arrows in phonological rules (back when phonology was done with rules...). The fact that the arrow in a phonological rule pointed in one direction did not imply that it was not possible to run the process in reverse. At least one parser (my Hermit Crab) was built that was quite capable of running phonological rules in either direction, and today's finite state transducers are routinely used to convert between phonological representations in either direction. I don't know whether the translation between semantics and syntax can be done with finite state transducers, but I am reasonably certain that the mapping is bidirectional, although it may be ambiguous in one or both directions. If this is true, then the direction that the arrows point is largely irrelevant. Read Review: http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1890.html Mike Maxwell CASL/ U MD |
| Date Posted: | 12-Sep-2008 |
| Linguistic Field(s): |
Linguistic Theories
Syntax |
| LL Issue: | 19.2786 |
| Posted: | 12-Sep-2008 |
