Re: Word Order in typology

From:    Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
> Interesting - I've seen it claimed more than once that Chomsky's deep
> structure approach is due to his mathematical background.
That's only part of the answer.  The problem is that various kinds of
dependencies -- especially things like wh-movement -- can be difficult
to characterize straightforwardly without making reference to multiple
grammatical strata. LFG, e.g., is putatively entirely monostratal (there
are no separate d-structures and s-structures), but doing so makes some
kinds of wh-dependencies look like movement, and thus multistratality,
through the backdoor. (Specifically, LFG has to invoke a null-pronoun
in precisely the situation where Minimalism et al. would have movement
-- the pronoun exists just "as a last resort".)

> As many on the list know, I take an essentially empirical approach so for
> me the 'surface' structures like syntax, morphology and (especially)
> phonology interest me.
Chomsky would, of course, claim that his program is empirical too, and
that he's just trying to answer different questions than you are. But
I agree with you that many of the structures that he posits are driven
by theory-internal reasoning and thus are not in principle empirically
motivated.

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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