IULC Publications

Discontinuity and Word Order in Categorial Grammar

By Geoffrey J. Huck

This study is concerned with constructions in which non-adjacent lexical items are felt to comprise a (discontinuous) constituent, sch as that in John looked the number up. While it is generally agreed that an analysis is to be preferred in which the translations of the italicized items at the level of logical form constitute a unit at that level, Professor Huck further addresses the question of how a syntax can be constructed that will deal with such sentences. He proceeds from a PTQ-type grammar (in the sense of Montague 1973) on which two constraints are placed: first, that constituency in surface forms be reflected in the logical forms they are mapped onto, and second, that syntactic operations be limited to adjunction. The author further demonstrates that, with the constraints, sentences with discontinuous constituents are accounted for in an 'extended' categorial grammar where word order possibilities are a function of i) the category assignments of the lexical items involved, ii) certain word order rules over these items, and iii) a small number of structural limitations on the construction of SFs under the category assignments.

57 pages
$5.00

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