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Syntactic change and the autonomy thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David Lightfoot
David Lightfoot
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

I. Despite much activity, the recent attention paid by generativists to diachronic syntax has led to no significant implications for a general theory of grammar and, from a purely historical viewpoint, has failed to focus on any well-defined concepts of historical change. The papers in this field stand largely in isolation from each other and show few common threads of interest or argumentation; there is little agreement on even the most fundamental concepts. Modern diachronic syntacticians, it is true, have no legacy equivalent to what was handed down to phonologists, and they must do their own pioneering work. This will preclude rapid progress, but it does not explain the current disarray of the field. The fault for that lies in ourselves and is a consequence of a theoretical approach to syntax precisely as barren as that of the neogrammarians.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , September 1977 , pp. 191 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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