Generative semantics: Difference between revisions

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The approach developed out of [[transformational-generative grammar|transformational generative grammar]] in the mid-1960s, but stood largely apart from, and in opposition to, work by [[Noam Chomsky]] and his later students. This move led to a more abstract framework and lately to the abandonment of the notion of the [[context free language|CFG]] [[formal grammar]] induced [[deep structure]].

A number of ideas from later work in generative semantics have been incorporated into [[cognitive linguistics]], [[Headhead-Drivendriven Phrasephrase Structurestructure Grammargrammar]] (HPSG), [[Constructionconstruction Grammargrammar]], and into mainstream Chomskyan linguistics.<ref>{{cite book|author=Newmeyer, Frederick, J.|title=Linguistic Theory in America (Second Edition)|year=1986|publisher=Academic Press}} See p. 138.</ref>

== History ==

The nature and genesis of the program are a matter of some controversy and have been extensively debated. Generative semanticists took Chomsky's concept of [[Deep Structurestructure and surface structure|deep structure]] and ran with it, assuming (contrary to later work by Chomsky and [[Ray Jackendoff]]) that deep structures were the sole input to [[semantics|semantic interpretation]]. This assumption, combined with a tendency to consider a wider range of empirical evidence than Chomskyan linguists, led generative semanticists to develop considerably more abstract and complex theories of deep structure than those advocated by Chomsky and his students—and indeed to abandon altogether the notion of "deep structure" as a locus of lexical insertion.

Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, there were heated debates between generative semanticists and more orthodox Chomskyans. The generative semanticists lost the debate, insofar as their research program ground to a halt by the 1980s. However, this was in part because the interests of key generative semanticists such as [[George Lakoff]] had gradually shifted away from the narrow study of [[syntax]] and [[semantics]].

==&ldquo;"Interpretive&rdquo;" vs. &ldquo;"generative&rdquo;" semantics==

The controversy surrounding generative semantics stemmed in part from the competition between two fundamentally different approaches to [[semantics]] within transformational generative syntax. The first semantic theories designed to be compatible with transformational syntax were ''interpretive''. Syntactic rules enumerated a set of well-formed sentences paired with syntactic structures, each of which was assigned an ''interpretation'' by the rules of a separate semantic theory. This left syntax relatively (though by no means entirely) "autonomous" with respect to semantics, and was the approach preferred by Chomsky.