Syntax–semantics interface

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]

The interface is conceived of very differently in formalist and functionalist. While functionalist approaches tend to look into semantics and pragmatics for explanations of syntactic phenomena, formalists try to limit such explanations within syntax itself.^[9]

Functionalist approaches

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]

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.^[10]

Formal approaches

Within the paradigm of formal semantics, the syntax–semantics interface is viewed as a mechanism for semantically interpreting syntactic structures. In the Heim and Kratzer model commonly adopted within generative linguistics, 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 formal frameworks take the opposite approach, using mechanisms such as type shifting and dynamic binding to compute denotations based on surface structures.^[1]^[11]^[12]^[3]

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.^[13]^[14] Levin and Rappaport Hovav isolated such aspects focusing on the phenomenon of unaccusativity that is "semantically determined and syntactivally encoded".^[15]

History

Before the 1950s, there was no discussion of a syntax–semantics interface in American linguistics, since neither semantics nor semantics was an active area of research.^[16] This neglect was due in part to the influence of logical positivism and behaviorism in psychology, that viewed hypotheses about linguistic meaning as untestable.^[16]^[17]

By the 1960s, syntax had become a major area of study, and some researchers began examining semantics as well. In this period, the most prominent view of the interface was the Katz-Postal Hypothesis according to which deep structure was the level of syntactic representation which underwent semantic interpretation. This assumption was upended by data involving quantifiers, which showed that syntactic transformations can affect meaning. During the linguistics wars, a variety of competing notions of the interface were developed, many of which live on in present day work.^[16]^[3]

Notes

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

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.