Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches by Stefan Müller (review)

In Grammatical theory(henceforth GT), Stefan Müller (henceforth M) provides a rich critical overview of the current state of research in syntactic theory. The book presents an authoritative discussion of the major theoretical frameworks in contemporary linguistics in a way that manages to be at once comprehensive, detailed, and critical. Furthermore, it strives to do so in a format that works both as an introductory textbook and as an advanced monograph on an impressive range of topics that are at the forefront of contemporary research. All of these features make GTa formidable achievement on many fronts. In some respects, though, the book's ambitious goals compromise its general structure and organization as a cohesive text. Some concrete examples are given below.

1. S tructure

GTis organized into two parts. Part I introduces the general background for discussion (Chs. 1 and 6) and reviews a range of theories that have played an important role in linguistic theorizing over the past century: phrase structure grammar(Ch. 2), government and binding(GB; Ch. 3), minimalism(Ch. 4), generalized phrase structure grammar(GPSG; Ch. 5), lexical-functional grammar(LFG; Ch. 7), categorial grammar(Ch. 8), head-driven phrase structure grammar(HPSG; Ch. 9), construction grammar(CxG; Ch. 10), dependency grammar(Ch. 11), and tree-adjoining grammar(TAG; Ch. 12). The discussion in these chapters is mostly aimed at readers without prior knowledge of grammatical theory.

Part II presents a more personal view on topics that cut across theories and pertain to some of the most lively issues in linguistics today: the innateness of linguistic knowledge (Ch. 13), the opposition between generative-enumerative and model-theoretic formalisms (Ch. 14), the competence/performance distinction (Ch. 15), language acquisition (Ch. 16), generative capacity (Ch. 17), general topics concerning the abstract properties of syntactic structures (Ch. 18), empty elements (Ch. 19), the diversity of displacement phenomena (Ch. 20), lexicalism (Ch. 21), analyses of complex predicates (Ch. 22), and the tools for capturing crosslinguistic generalizations (Ch. 23). This part of the book is aimed at more advanced readers and presupposes most of the material presented in Part I.

2. E valuation

2.1. A s textbook

GTbegins with a survey of virtually all of the phenomena typically covered in a standard undergraduate introduction on syntactic theory: constituency tests, categories, arguments and adjuncts, grammatical functions, phrase structure, passive, wh-questions, and relative clauses. Building on this empirical foundation, the text then proceeds to elaborate most of the main formal approaches to syntactic description, as laid out in the list of chapters given above.

Notably, GTuses German and not the usual English as the main object language (though many examples from English and other languages are provided when relevant). For the reader who knows German and is somewhat familiar with the standard analyses, the presentation is extremely lucid and informative. But for newcomers to syntactic theory who do not know German and are not adept at reading glosses, this material might prove to be quite challenging. Fine points of German grammar that are obvious to someone who knows the language are likely to either escape or confuse someone who does not, especially the beginning student: for example, the fact that case is usually marked only on the determiner in German, but sometimes on the head noun as well, or syncretism in the definite determiners.

This said, the extensive use of German provides a useful perspective on issues that are addressed in a somewhat pedestrian fashion in textbooks centered around English. Particularly good examples of this are GT's discussion of constituency and verb position, given the flexibility of German topicalization vis-à-vis English topicalization, and the dramatic word-order differences between main and subordinate clauses in German, but not English.

In addition, topics such as scrambling/local reordering and the traditional organization of the German clause into fields—which are particularly relevant to...