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The doctrines of transformational-generative grammar (as promulgated in 1957, with frequent later emendations) have on occasion been criticised, sometimes severely. Such criticism have, however, appeared mostly in article-form, and mostly in relatively inaccessible places. Discussions in bookform have been rare. In this book, the criticism offered by Professor Hall over more than twenty years have been brought together. They cover the range of linguistic structure (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics), general theory, and the history of linguistics. In these essays, the many short-comings of transformational-generative grammar are revealed by critical examination, with inevitably negative conclusions. The two final essays of the book deal with parallel aberrations in current literary theory, especially Derridian “radical skepticism concerning language” and “deconstruction”, as viewed from a linguistic stand-point.
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LINGUISTICS AND PSEUDO-LINGUISTICS AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F. KONRAD KOERNER (University of Ottawa) Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Henning Andersen (Buffalo, N.Y.); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles) Thomas V.Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin) J.Peter Maher (Chicago); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.) E.Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo) Volume 55 Robert A. Hall, Jr. Linguistics and Pseudo-Linguistics LINGUISTICS AND PSEUDO-LINGUISTICS SELECTED ESSAYS 1965-1985 R O B E R T A . HALL, Jr. Cornell University JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA 1987 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hall, Robert Anderson, 1911Linguistics and pseudo-linguistics. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763; v. 55) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Generative grammar. 2. Deconstruction. I. Title. II. Series. P158.H28 1987 415 87-21053 ISBN 90 272 3549 X (alk. paper) © Copyright 1987 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. In Memoriam W. FREEMAN TWADDELL (1906-1982) CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements ix Fact and Fiction in Grammatical Analysis 1 Some Recent Studies on Port-Royal and Vaugelas 9 Review of Saltarelli, A Phonology of Italian in a Generative Grammar 32 "Underlying Representation" and Observable Fact in Phonology 37 . . Review of Hockett, The State of the Art 58 Some Critiques of Chomskyan Theory 80 Review of Hagège, La grammaire générative 89 Can Linguistics Be a Science? 94 Review of Sampson, Liberty and Language, and of Matthews, Generative Grammar and Linguistic Competence 98 Review of Newmeyer, Linguistic Theory in America 103 Review of Fietz, Funktionaler Strukturalismus 113 Deconstructing Derrida on Language 116 References 123 Index of Names and Topics 139 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although the intellectual impulse behind the transformational-genera tive grammar (TGG) movement of the 1960's and 1970's is by now largely spent, the use of TGG as a weapon in academic power-politics is unfortu nately still wide-spread. The same is true of the (not unrelated) "deconstructionist" movement in literary criticism. It is, therefore, still appropri ate to present, as energetically as possible, the case against TGG and "deco