Simpler Syntax

Within the tradition of generative grammar, the most prominent focus of

linguistic research has been the syntactic component, the part of language

concerned with the grammatical organization of words and phrases. The present

study will develop and defend a view of the syntactic component that is on

one hand thoroughly within the generative tradition but on the other markedly

at odds with views of syntax that have developed in mainstream generative

grammar (MGG).1 Our approach concurs in many respects with many alternative

theories of generative syntax, most notably Head-Driven Phrase Structure

Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1987; 1994), Lexical-Functional Grammar (Bresnan

1982a; 2001), and Construction Grammar (Fillmore 1988; Fillmore and Kay

1993; Zwicky 1994; Goldberg 1995; to appear); it also shares commonalities

with others such as Autolexical Syntax (Sadock 1991; 2003) and Role and

Reference Grammar (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997). We will refer to this collection

on occasion as ‘‘the alternative generative theories.’’