Linguistic Syntactic Theory

A Linguistic Syntactic Theory is a linguistic theory that can systematically explain grammatical structure (in natural language for generating grammatical sentences).

• AKA: Natural Language Syntax Formal System, Grammar Theory, Syntactic Framework.
• Context:
  • It can typically describe Structural Relation between linguistic elements such as words, phrases, and clauses.
  • It can typically generate Grammatical Sentence through rules or constraints on syntactic combinations.
  • It can typically analyze Sentence Construction using formal representations of hierarchical structure.
  • It can typically account for Syntactic Phenomenon including movement, agreement, and dependency relations.
  • It can typically explain Grammaticality Judgment made by native speakers about well-formed sentences.
  • ...
  • It can often capture Cross-Linguistic Variation in word order, agreement patterns, and structural constraints.
  • It can often formalize Universal Grammar principles shared across human languages.
  • It can often model Syntactic Acquisition by language learners through parameter setting or constraint ranking.
  • It can often predict Grammatical Transformation between related structures such as active and passive voice.
  • It can often explain Syntactic Ambiguity where a single sentence has multiple structural interpretations.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Simple Linguistic Syntactic Theory to being a Complex Linguistic Syntactic Theory, depending on its formal power.
  • It can range from being a Rule-Based Linguistic Syntactic Theory to being a Constraint-Based Linguistic Syntactic Theory, depending on its generative mechanism.
  • It can range from being a Universal Linguistic Syntactic Theory to being a Language-Specific Linguistic Syntactic Theory, depending on its cross-linguistic scope.
  • It can range from being a Formal Linguistic Syntactic Theory to being a Functional Linguistic Syntactic Theory, depending on its theoretical orientation.
  • ...
  • It can produce some portion of a Natural Language's Sentences through generative rules or wellformedness constraints.
  • It can integrate with a Linguistic Morphology Theory, that explains Word Formation and inflectional patterns.
  • It can be a PartOf a Natural Language Theory alongside phonology, semantics, and pragmatics.
  • It can interface with a Linguistic Semantic Theory to connect syntactic structure with meaning representation.
  • ...
• Examples:
  • Linguistic Syntactic Theory Approach Categories, such as:
    • Phrase Structure Linguistic Syntactic Theorys, such as:
      • Transformational Grammar for syntactic transformation modeling.
      • Government and Binding Theory for universal principle parameterization.
      • Minimalist Program for computational efficiency explanation.
      • X-Bar Theory for phrase structure uniformity.
    • Dependency Linguistic Syntactic Theorys, such as:
      • Dependency Grammar for word-to-word relation modeling.
      • Word Grammar for lexical dependency network.
      • Meaning-Text Theory for multi-level dependency representation.
      • Functional Generative Description for tectogrammatical structure.
    • Constraint-Based Linguistic Syntactic Theorys, such as:
      • Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar for feature structure unification.
      • Lexical Functional Grammar for parallel structure coordination.
      • Construction Grammar for form-meaning pairing analysis.
      • Optimality Theory for constraint interaction modeling.
  • Formal Power Categories, such as:
    • Context-Free Linguistic Syntactic Theorys, such as:
      • Classical Phrase Structure Grammar for constituent analysis.
      • Tree-Adjoining Grammar for mild context-sensitivity.
    • Context-Sensitive Linguistic Syntactic Theorys, such as:
      • Transformational-Generative Grammar for recursive rule application.
      • Categorial Grammar for logical type composition.
  • ...
• Counter-Examples:
  • Linguistic Pragmatics Theory, which focuses on intended meaning rather than structural arrangement.
  • Linguistic Semantic Theory, which addresses meaning interpretation rather than syntactic form.
  • Linguistic Phonology Theory, which studies sound patterns rather than grammatical structure.
  • Linguistic Morphology Theory, which examines word formation rather than sentence construction.
  • Corpus Linguistics, which describes usage patterns without necessarily providing explanatory mechanisms.
• See: Natural Language Parser, Grammar Lexicalization, Context-Free Grammar, Finite State Grammar, Natural Language Parsing, Natural Language Generation, Syntax, Constituent Structure, Universal Grammar.

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References

2003

• (SagWB, 2003) ⇒ I. A. Sag, T. Wasow, and E. M. Bender. (2003). “Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction, 2nd edition." CSLI Publications.
  • The term 'syntax' is often used instead of 'grammar' in technical work in linguistics. While the two terms are sometimes interchangeable, 'grammar' may also be used more broadly to cover all aspects of language structure; 'syntax', on the other hand, refers only the the ways in which words combine in phrases and phrases in sentences - the form or structures of well-formed expressions. Linguists divide grammar into 'syntax', 'semantics' (the study of linguistic meaning), 'morphology' (the study of word structure,), and 'phonology' (the study of sound patterns of language). Although these distinctions are conceptually clear, many phenomena in natural languages involve more than one of these components of grammar.

1998

• 1998_IntroToGB.
  • "One of the main aims of linguistics is to find and describe the structure that is hidden behind the utterances we make. (1) Peter loves Mary. (2) *Loves Peter Mary. We will intuitively accept (1) but reject (2). We will conclude from this, in accordance with all linguists, that an English sentence usually has Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order."

1957

• (Chomsky, 1957) ⇒ Noam Chomsky. (1957). “Syntactic Structures." Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN:978-3-11-017279-9

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