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Syntax–semantics interface

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In linguistics, the syntax–semantics interface, also called morphosyntax–semantics interface or syntax-lexical semantics interface, is the interaction between syntax and semantics,[1] or more specifically between morphosyntax and lexical semantics. Its study encompasses phenomena that pertain to both syntax and semantics, with the goal of explaining which syntactic properties of an expression are determined by its meaning, and viceversa.[2] Specific topics include scope,[3][2] binding,[3] verbs features like lexical aspect,[1] telicity,[1] dynamicity and relationality, noun traits like animacy, agentivity, individuation (mass nouns vs count nouns), abstract and concrete,[4][5][6][7] semantic macroroles,[8] and unaccusativity.[4]

Within functionalist approaches, research on the syntax–semantics interface has been aimed at disproving the formalist argument of the autonomy of syntax, by finding instances of semantically determined syntactic structures.[4] By contrast, within the paradigm of formal semantics, the syntax–semantics interface is viewed as a mechanism for semantically interpreting syntactic structures. In the standard generative approach known as the Heim and Kratzer model, denotations are read off a level of syntactic representation called logical form. At logical form, semantic relationships such as scope and binding are represented unambiguously, having been determined by operations such as quantifier raising. Thus, this model places much of the explanatory burden in the syntactic rather than the semantic component of the grammar. Other frameworks take the opposite approach, using mechanisms such as type shifting and dynamic binding to compute denotations based on surface structures.[1][9][10][3]

History

Before the 1950s, there was no discussion of a syntax–semantics interface in American linguistics, also because semantics itself was a neglected subject.[11] The neglect of semantics was due in part to the fact that traditionally the fieldwork focused on phonetics, phonology and then morphology, leaving little space even for syntax; in part, it was due to the stances of logical positivism and behaviorism in psychology, that viewed semantic and meaning as something within the mind that could not be tested empirically and was therefore not a suitable scientific subject.[11][12]

One of the most prominent differences between formalist and functionalist approaches to linguistics, is that functionalist approaches tend to look into semantics and pragmatics for explanations of syntactic phenomena, while formalists try to limit such explanations within syntax itself.[13] In the 1960s, within the Chomskian circles of generative linguistics at MIT, the Katz-Postal hypothesis was formulated, which approached the issue of semantics proposing that the interpretation of meaning could straightforward be derived from syntax.[11] By contrast, since the 1970s, as a response to syntactic-oriented approaches like Chomsky's generativism, the assumption underlying many studies on lexical semantics has been that "syntactic properties of phrases reflect, in large part, the meanings of the words that head them".[14]

Levin and Rappaport Hovav, in their 1995 monograph, reiterated that there are some aspects of verb meaning that are relevant to syntax, and others that are not, as previously noted by Steven Pinker.[15][16] Levin and Rappaport Hovav isolated such aspects focusing on the phenomenon of unaccusativity that is "semantically determined and syntactivally encoded".[17] Van Valin and LaPolla, in their 1997 monographic study, found that the more semantically motivated or driven a syntactic phenomena is, the more it tends to be topologically universal, that is, to show less cross-linguistic variation.[18]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Chierchia (1999)
  2. ^ a b Hackl (2013)
  3. ^ a b c Partee (2014)
  4. ^ a b c Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995)
  5. ^ Van Valin & LaPolla (1997)
  6. ^ Vendler (1957)
  7. ^ Tenny (1994)
  8. ^ Van Valin (2005) p.67
  9. ^ Heim & Kratzer (1998)
  10. ^ Baker (2015)
  11. ^ a b c Partee (2014).pp.2, 6
  12. ^ Taylor (2017)
  13. ^ Van Valin 2003, p.334
  14. ^ Levin& Pinker (1992)
  15. ^ Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) ch.1 p. 9
  16. ^ Pinker 1989
  17. ^ Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) ch.5 p.179, Afterword p.279
  18. ^ Van Valin (2005), ch.5 "Linking syntactic and semantic representations in simple sentences" p.128

References

  • Barker, Chris (2015). "Scope" (PDF). In Lappin, Shalom; Fox, Chris (eds.). Handbook of Contemporary Semantics (2 ed.). Wiley Blackwell. Section 4.3. doi:10.1002/9781118882139.ch2.
  • Chierchia, G. (1999) Syntax-semantics interface, pp. 824-826, in: The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, Edited by Keil & Wilson (1999) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
  • Hackl, M. (2013) The syntax–semantics interface. Lingua, 130, 66-87.
  • Heim, Irene; Kratzer, Angelika (1998). Semantics in Generative Grammar. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. pp. 194–198.
  • Levin, B., & Pinker, S. (1992) Introduction in Beth Levin & Steven Pinker (1992, Eds) Lexical & conceptual semantics. (A Cognition Special Issue) Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. Pp. 244.
  • Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1995). Unaccusativity: At the syntax–lexical semantics interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  • Partee, Barbara (2014). "A brief history of the syntax-semantics interface in Western formal linguistics" (PDF). Semantics-Syntax Interface. 1 (1): 1–20. [1]
  • Pinker, S. (1989) Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. New editoin in 2013: Learnability and Cognition, new edition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure. MIT press.
  • Taylor, J. (2017) Lexical Semantics. In B. Dancygier (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, pp. 246-261). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316339732.017
  • Tenny, C. (1994). Aspectual roles and the syntax-semantics interface (Vol. 52). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
  • Van Valin, R. D. Jr. & LaPolla, R. J. (1997) Syntax: Structure, meaning, and function. Cambridge University Press.
  • Van Valin Jr, R. D. (2003) Functional linguistics, ch. 13 in The handbook of linguistics, pp. 319-336.
  • Van Valin, R. D. Jr. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantics interface, Cambridge University Press.
  • Vendler, Z. (1957) Verbs and times in The Philosophical Review 66(2): 143–160. Reprinted as ch. 4 of Linguistics and Philosophy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1967, pp.97-121.

Further reading

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