Meaningful Arrangement - Exploring the Syntactic Description of Texts - Edward McDonald
13 Delimiting syntax
Meaningful Arrangement - Exploring the Syntactic Description of Texts - Edward McDonald
Edward McDonald [+]
University of Auckland.
Description
In Chapter 13, the author sets the scene with an account of two of the most influential syntactic theorists to emerge in the 1950s: Lucien Tesnière and Noam Chomsky. These two theorists in effect represent different reactions to the impact of structural linguistics on traditional grammar. Both of them clearly recognised the then marginal status of syntax, and both argued strongly for its ‘autonomy’, though for very different reasons. Although their specific claims turn out to contain some surprising similarities, their overall frameworks point in very different directions, and show that it was in no way inevitable that syntax should have taken the Chomskyan path, so often now regarded as the default one.