Word-Order Based Grammar (review)

Koktova’s monograph offers a novel theory of grammar which purports to handle questions that neither Chomskyan generativism nor Prague functionalism has adequately answered. To be sure, Kconsiders deep and surface structures, recursion, and lexical valency in treating word-order (Ch. 2), adverbial modification (Ch. 3), wh-extraction (Ch. 4), anaphora (Ch. 5), and formalization (Ch. 6). This book grew out of her 1986 monograph on sentence adverbials and other papers appearing in Theoretical linguistics in 1987, 1992, 1996, and 1997. In the present work K’s assessment of other proposals has become somewhat more articulate.

K posits five types of word order (WO) in Ch. 2, namely, (1) fixed deep WO reflected in the fixed order of the elements in the information structure and basic sentence; (2) free deep WO, the opposite of the first type; (3) fixed surface WO, reflecting Joseph Greenberg’s parameters and constraints; (4) free surface WO corresponding to free deep WO or to fixed surface WO which is ‘relaxed’ by the mechanism of topicalization and focalization; (5) free surface WO not corresponding to deep WO. The last type is the major type. The actual order here is regulated by pragmatic factors called surface segmentation and pulsation. These notions are among K’s original contributions.

Ch. 3 argues that sentence adverbials (surprisingly), modal adverbs (probably), focalizers (only), negators, and interjections are generated by a new type of adverbial modification which Kcalls ‘modification of attitude’. Their sequence, as in surprisingly probably not only, reflects the deep order and information structure.

The treatment of wh-elements in Ch. 4 is perhaps the best part of the book. Here K convincingly demonstrates how these elements are universally extractable. When extracted, they invariably maintain their information status as focus. Likewise, non wh-elements will keep their information status as topic or focus. This will in turn provide an explanation for split focus or topic. K also proposes a subcategorization of empty categories and pronouns in an effort to account for their surface manifestation as nominals. This subcategorization is based on the position of the element as a node in the deep representation and on its status as sentence topic or focus.

Ch. 5 discusses anaphora in complex and simple sentences besides anaphora in general. The first is almost unrestricted simply because the antecedent and the anaphoric element are found in different clauses, which is not the case in simple sentences where several restrictions apply. Here and at the phrase level, ease in the processing of information, rather than syntax, seems to be the guiding principle. Even nonconfigurational languages like Czech and Russian are said to follow this principle.

K shows in Ch. 6 how the components of her grammar fit together in a formal system and illustrates its use in elucidating Czech surface word-order. A four-page concluding chapter reiterates the insights shared throughout this forbiddingly ambitious book.