Meaning and the Structure of Language

Abstract

THE NON-LINGUIST who has conscientiously tried to keep abreast of developments in linguistic theory may well be ready to give up. Linguistics, especially transformational grammar, has matured recently at an alarming rate, so that transformational grammarians may seem to have developed increasingly narrow interests and, moreover, to have become so embroiled in the muddy business of securing their own positions, digging themselves in on a narrow front, that whether they are involved in civil war or are continuing to extend the frontiers of linguistic knowledge is often very unclear-even to themselves. I fancy that scarcely a single transformationalist will bother to raise his head as Professor Chafe wings his way overhead firing enthusiastically but erratically in all directions. The outsider is much more likely to notice the high-flier, and he needs some help in assessing the significance of Chafe's sally-perhaps it would not be out of place to give him at the same time some reports from the transformational trenches, and to assure him that all is still well there. I shall assume that he is reasonably familiar with Chomsky's Syntactic Structures1 and the main developments in transformational grammar up to about 1965, when Chomsky published his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.2 Not that I believe the college English teacher has any (narrow professional) reason to bother much about contemporary linguistics. On the contrary, recent developments in transformational grammar should make it perfectly clear that there is no hope whatever of making direct use of that approach to linguistics in English teaching-at any rate not along the lines of existing attempts. And Chafe's work seems even less relevant.