Agreed. In this vein I should also mention that I maintain a strict separation between syntax and semantics/pragmatics/discourse/etc. With the earlier Chomsky, I see syntax as a distinct component of the internal grammar, and approach it as such.
On 18 Jun 2010 at 14:46, James Christian wrote: > Hi, > > word order isn't a problem. If you have multiple word orders you can > define > multiple rules. You just define whatever rules the data supports > whatever > the language. However, at a higher level of grammar, the discourse > level, > word orders are not as arbitrary as they may seem. Word order, in > many > languages, expresses what in English is expressed by accenting an > emphasised > word or phrase. There may be contextual reasons for producing this > kind of > emphasis. Defining a contextual rule set that captures these nuances > of a > language would be challenging. You raise a good point. However, this > is all > a little too premature. If we've already got to the point where we > are > worrying about rules at this level then you already have a pretty > darn good > grammar. I foresee many lower level problems is properly defining > rules for > smaller chunks of language before we could even dream of being able > to boast > we are only left with these high level problems. > > James Christian > _______________________________________________ > b-hebrew mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew > Dave Washburn http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
