Cover: Surface Structure: The Interface of Autonomous Components, from Harvard University PressCover: Surface Structure in E-DITION

Surface Structure

The Interface of Autonomous Components

Product Details

E-DITION

$65.00 • £54.95 • €60.00

ISBN 9780674333765

Publication Date: 01/14/1981

213 pages

illustrations, tables

The Language and Thought Series

World

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Surface Structure provides a complete and up-to-date exposition of a major variant of the Chomskian theory of language: the so-called Revised Extended Standard Theory. Robert Fiengo presents the theory in a clear and succinct way and shows how many of the leading ideas in the theory can be deepened and strengthened. It is Fiengo’s central thesis that there is a syntactic level—surface structure—which constitutes the interface between syntactic, lexical, morphological and semantic components of the grammar. This thesis is defended across a broad range of problems in English grammar, resulting in a significant increase in the empirical coverage of the theory.

Although not a polemical work, Fiengo’s book addresses many of the current controversies in linguistics and presents a rationale for guiding choices among competing theories. At a time when linguistic theories appear to be diverging in an explosive fashion, this lucid and current discussion is precisely what is needed.

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