Generative semantics in the 1960s The analysis of these different lexical units had a decisive role in the field of "
generative linguistics" during the 1960s. The term
generative was proposed by Noam Chomsky in his book
Syntactic Structures published in 1957. The term
generative linguistics was based on Chomsky's
generative grammar, a linguistic theory that states systematic sets of rules (
X' theory) can predict grammatical phrases within a natural language. Generative Linguistics is also known as Government-Binding Theory. Generative linguists of the 1960s, including
Noam Chomsky and
Ernst von Glasersfeld, believed semantic relations between
transitive verbs and
intransitive verbs were tied to their independent syntactic organization. Lexicalist theories emphasized that complex words (resulting from compounding and derivation of
affixes) have lexical entries that are derived from morphology, rather than resulting from overlapping syntactic and phonological properties, as Generative Linguistics predicts. The distinction between Generative Linguistics and Lexicalist theories can be illustrated by considering the transformation of the word
destroy to
destruction: •
Generative Linguistics theory: states the transformation of
destroy →
destruction as the nominal,
nom +
destroy, combined with
phonological rules that produce the output
destruction. Views this transformation as independent of the morphology. •
Lexicalist theory: sees
destroy and
destruction as having idiosyncratic lexical entries based on their differences in morphology. Argues that each morpheme contributes specific meaning. States that the formation of the complex word
destruction is accounted for by a set of
Lexical Rules, which are different and independent from syntactic rules. These probing techniques analyzed negative data over
prescriptive grammars, and because of Chomsky's proposed Extended Projection Principle in 1986, probing techniques showed where specifiers of a sentence had moved to in order to fulfill the EPP. This allowed syntacticians to hypothesize that lexical items with complex syntactic features (such as
ditransitive,
inchoative, and
causative verbs), could select their own specifier element within a
syntax tree construction. (For more on probing techniques, see Suci, G., Gammon, P., & Gamlin, P. (1979)). This brought the focus back on the
syntax-lexical semantics interface; however, syntacticians still sought to understand the relationship between complex verbs and their related syntactic structure, and to what degree the syntax was projected from the lexicon, as the Lexicalist theories argued. In the mid 1990s, linguists
Heidi Harley,
Samuel Jay Keyser, and
Kenneth Hale addressed some of the implications posed by complex verbs and a lexically-derived syntax. Their proposals indicated that the predicates CAUSE and BECOME, referred to as subunits within a Verb Phrase, acted as a lexical semantic template.
Predicates are verbs and state or affirm something about the subject of the sentence or the argument of the sentence. For example, the predicates
went and
is here below affirm the argument of the subject and the state of the subject respectively. The subunits of Verb Phrases led to the Argument Structure Hypothesis and Verb Phrase Hypothesis, both outlined below. The recursion found under the "umbrella" Verb Phrase, the VP Shell, accommodated binary-branching theory; another critical topic during the 1990s. Current theory recognizes the predicate in Specifier position of a tree in inchoative/
anticausative verbs (intransitive), or causative verbs (transitive) is what selects the
theta role conjoined with a particular verb. They argue that a predicate's argument structure is represented in the syntax, and that the syntactic representation of the predicate is a lexical projection of its arguments. Thus, the structure of a predicate is strictly a lexical representation, where each phrasal head projects its argument onto a phrasal level within the syntax tree. The selection of this phrasal head is based on Chomsky's Empty Category Principle. This lexical projection of the predicate's argument onto the syntactic structure is the foundation for the Argument Structure Hypothesis.
Halle & Marantz 1993 Morris Halle and
Alec Marantz introduced the notion of
distributed morphology in 1993. This theory views the syntactic structure of words as a result of morphology and semantics, instead of the morpho-semantic interface being predicted by the syntax. Essentially, the idea that under the Extended Projection Principle there is a local boundary under which a special meaning occurs. This meaning can only occur if a head-projecting morpheme is present within the local domain of the syntactic structure. The following is an example of the tree structure proposed by distributed morphology for the sentence ''"John's destroying the city"
. Destroy'' is the root, V-1 represents verbalization, and D represents nominalization. == Classification of event types ==