Ray Jackendoff

Semantic interpretation in generative grammar

Like other recent work in the field of generative-transformational grammar, this book developed from a realization that many problems in linguistics involve semantics too deeply to be solved insightfully within the syntactic theory of Noam Chomskys Aspect of the Theory of Syntax. Dr Jackendoff has attempted to take a broader view of semantics, studying the important contribution it makes to the syntactic patterns of English.The research is carried out in the framework of an interpretive theory, that is, a theory of grammar in which syntactic structures are given interpretations by an autonomous syntactic component. The book investigates a wide variety of semantic rules, stating them in considerable detail and extensively treating their consequences for the syntactic component of the grammar. In particular, it is shown that the hypothesis that transformations do not change meaning must be abandoned; but equally stringent restrictions on transformations are formulated within the interpretive theory.Among the areas of grammar discussed are the well-known problems of case relations, pronominalization, negation, and quantifiers. In addition, the author presents semantic analyses of such neglected areas as adverbs and intonation contours; he also proposes radically new approaches to the so-called Crossover Principle, the control problem for complement subjects, parentheticals, and the interpretation of nonspecific noun phrases.

“What” and “where” in spatial language and spatial cognition

Fundamental to spatial knowledge in all species are the representations underlying object recognition, object search, and navigation through space. But what sets humans apart from other species is our ability to express spatial experience through language. This target article explores the language of objects and places , asking what geometric properties are preserved in the representations underlying object nouns and spatial prepositions in English. Evidence from these two aspects of language suggests there are significant differences in the geometric richness with which objects and places are encoded. When an object is named (i.e., with count nouns), detailed geometric properties – principally the objects shape (axes, solid and hollow volumes, surfaces, and parts) – are represented. In contrast, when an object plays the role of either “figure” (located object) or “ground” (reference object) in a locational expression, only very coarse geometric object properties are represented, primarily the main axes. In addition, the spatial functions encoded by spatial prepositions tend to be nonmetric and relatively coarse, for example, “containment,” “contact,” “relative distance,” and “relative direction.” These properties are representative of other languages as well. The striking differences in the way language encodes objects versus places lead us to suggest two explanations: First, there is a tendency for languages to level out geometric detail from both object and place representations. Second, a nonlinguistic disparity between the representations of “what” and “where” underlies how language represents objects and places. The language of objects and places converges with and enriches our understanding of corresponding spatial representations.

On beyond Zebra: The relation of linguistic and visual information ☆

Abstract This paper addresses the problem of how the forms of information derived by the visual system can be translated into forms useable by the language capacity, so that it is possible to talk about what one sees. The hypothesis explored here is that there is a translation between the 3D model of Marrs (1982) visual theory and the semantic/conceptual structure of Jackendoffs (1983) theory of natural language semantics. It is shown that there are substantial points of correspondence through which the encoding of physical objects and their locations and motions can be coordinated between these two levels of representation, and that both of these levels are deeply involved in visual as well as linguistic understanding.

The proper treatment of measuring out, telicity, and perhaps even quantification in english

The notions of ‘measuring out’ (Tenny 1987, 1992) and ‘incremental theme’ (Dowty 1991) have been widely invoked as aspectual criteria involved in verbal argument selection. However, the full range of relevant data suggests that the role of arguments in determining aspectuality has little to do with argument selection. Rather, the relation between an argument and time found in ‘measuring out’ and ‘incremental theme’ phenomena is more properly viewed as a relation between the dimensional structure of the argument, the time interval, and the event in which they take part. Such a relation, here called structure-preserving binding, arises from an interaction between the lexical structure of the verb and pragmatic factors. This approach extends naturally to other situations in which time is not implicated, for example, covering and filling relations. It also extends to plurals, yielding a novel formalization of distributive quantification.I am grateful to James Pustejovsky, Joan Maling, Piroska Csuri, and Henk Verkuyl for important discussions on this topic, and to Verkuyl, Manfred Krifka, Carol Tenny, and Fritz Newmeyer for detailed remarks on earlier versions of the paper. This is not to say that they endorse the present version.This research was supported in part by NSF Grant IRI 92-13849 to Brandeis University, in part by Keck Foundation funding of the Brandeis Center for Complex Systems, and in part by a Fellowship to the author from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

A parallel architecture perspective on language processing.

This article sketches the Parallel Architecture, an approach to the structure of grammar that contrasts with mainstream generative grammar (MGG) in that (a) it treats phonology, syntax, and semantics as independent generative components whose structures are linked by interface rules; (b) it uses a parallel constraint-based formalism that is nondirectional; (c) it treats words and rules alike as pieces of linguistic structure stored in long-term memory. In addition to the theoretical advantages offered by the Parallel Architecture, it lends itself to a direct interpretation in processing terms, in which pieces of structure stored in long-term memory are assembled in working memory, and alternative structures are in competition. The resulting model of processing is compared both with processing models derived from MGG and with lexically driven connectionist architectures.

Control Is Not Movement

We present arguments against Hornsteins recent movement theory of control. Such a theory can be sustained only if a restricted subset of the data is considered. We review additional data that show that the position of the controller is determined at least in part by semantic constraints. A semantic account captures the generalizations in a manner impossible for a syntactic account.

MME. Tussaud meets the binding theory

The principle of language that allows one to refer to a statue by using the name of the person the statue portrays (the ‘statue rule’) is generally taken to be a rule of pragmatics, well outside concerns of syntactic theory. However, there proves to be an interaction between binding theory and the statue rule, impossible if binding theory is syntactic and the statue rule is pragmatic. A number of possible solutions are explored that keep traditional binding theory intact; these all prove problematic. The solution to be developed extends the theory of binding of Jackendoff (1990a), in which binding is a relation among constituents of conceptual structure, and in which syntactic anaphora is the syntactic expression of such binding. A conceptual structure binding condition is proposed that accounts for the interaction of binding and the statue rule; this also accounts for several problematic cases normally taken to fall under syntactic binding theory.

Real-time processing implications of enriched composition at the syntax-semantics interface.

This study reports results on the real-time consequences of aspectual coercion. We define aspectual coercion as a combinatorial semantic operation requiring computation over and above that provided by combining lexical items through expected syntactic processes. An experiment is described assessing whether or not parsing of a string requiring coercion—in addition to syntactic composition—is more computationally costly than parsing a syntactically transparent counterpart, a string that provides for an interpretable representation via syntactic composition alone. The prediction of a higher computational cost for this process is borne out by the results.

Verb-particle explorations

The contributions in this book are a representative cross-section of recent research on verb-particle constructions. The syntactic, semantic, morphological, and psycholinguistic phenomena associated with the constructions in English, Dutch, German, and Swedish are analyzed from the various different theoretical viewpoints.

The View from the Periphery: The English Comparative Correlative

The English comparative correlative construction (e.g., The more you eat, the fatter you get) embeds like an ordinary CP, and each of its clauses displays an ordinary long-distance dependency. However, the connection between the two clauses is not ordinary: they are connected paratactically in syntax, but the first clause is interpreted as if it were a subordinate clause. The constructions mixture of the general and the idiosyncratic at all levels of detail challenges the distinction between core and periphery in grammar and the assumption that some level of underlying syntax directly mirrors semantic structure.