Deconstructing Syntactic Theory

Abstract It is widely recognized that the launching of generative grammar as a scientific discipline set in motion a dramatic and far-reaching revolution in the study of human language, and more generally, of human cognition. Since then, there has been an explosion in descriptions of grammatical phenomena across a wide range of languages. All in all, what we know now about language vastly exceeds what could have even been imagined prior to the advent of the generative enterprise. Our goal is to step back from the close analysis of individual linguistic phenomena and assess one high profile thread in these theoretical developments, which assumes the centrality of syntactic derivations. The defining feature of this approach is the idea that the individual steps in the construction of syntactic representations are of theoretical relevance, and that the semantic and phonological representations of utterances are fully determined by particular stages of syntactic derivations. This book reviews the foundations of derivational syntactic theory: the notion that the individual steps in the construction of syntactic representations are of theoretical relevance, and that the semantic and phonological representations of utterances are fully determined by particular stages of syntactic derivations. We identify a range of conceptual and empirical problems with this approach, and argue for alternatives in the form of declaratively licensed constraints on form, meaning, and their relation (i.e. constructions). We offer general guidelines for justifying syntactic structure, and a minimalist approach to syntactic theory, assuming the general perspective of the Parallel Architecture and Simpler Syntax.