Syntax theory
The term syntax theory is a collective term used to designate theoretical description and explanation approaches that deal with the possible structural configurations in sentences of natural languages . The main focus is traditionally on the formulation of general principles as possible from which the observable facts to flexion morphology, word order and congruence can be derived. Syntax theories as such are not language-specific, but rather explicitly claim to provide the framework for a complete description of the rules of any natural language. So you are trying to formulate linguistic universals ; From there, direct predictions are occasionally derived about genetic determination (see nativism , universal grammar ) or about linguistic ontogenesis (see language acquisition , principles-and-parameter theory ).
Elaborated formal syntax theories have essentially only existed since the publication of Noam Chomsky's pioneering works Syntactic Structures (1957) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), although there is by no means within the linguistic community the basic assumptions made in them. Nonetheless, generative grammar (developed in the Chomsky tradition) is still a highly influential field of research, although in its most recent forms (see minimalist program ) it has little in common with the classical Chomsky transformation grammar .
Further syntax theories are:
- Dependency grammar
- Functional syntax
- Government binding theory
- Theory of optimality
- Categorical grammar
- Lexical-functional grammar
- Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar
- Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar
- Construction grammar
- Tree Adjoining Grammar
- Naturalness theory
- Role and Reference Grammar
literature
- Stefan Müller: Grammar Theory (= Stauffenburg Introductions series No. 20), 2nd edition, Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3860578056 .
- Stefan Müller: Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches (= Textbooks in Language Sciences series No. 1). Language Science Press, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-944675-21-3 .
Web links
- Peter Gallmann: New Developments in Grammar Theory (script and seminar materials for download)