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‘Virtual conceptual necessity’, feature-dissociation and the Saussurian legacy in generative grammar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2006

NOEL BURTON-ROBERTS
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
GEOFFREY POOLE
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Abstract

This paper is a critique of two foundational assumptions of generative work culminating in the Minimalist Program: the assumption that, as a matter of conceptual necessity, language has a ‘double-interface property’ and the related assumption that phonology has a realizational function with respect to syntax-semantics. The issues are broached through a critique of Holmberg's (2000) analysis of Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic. We show that, although empirically motivated, and although based on the double-interface assumption, this analysis is incompatible with that assumption and with the notion of (phonological) realization. Independently of Stylistic Fronting, we argue that the double-interface assumption is a problematic legacy of Saussure's conception of the linguistic sign and that, conceptually, it is neither explanatory nor necessary. The Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2000) develops a Peircian conception of the relation between sound and meaning that breaks with the Saussurian tradition, though in a way consistent with minimalist goals. Other superficially similar approaches (Lexeme–Morpheme Base Morphology, Distributed Morphology, Jackendoff's Parallel Architecture) are discussed; it is argued that they, too, perpetuate aspects of Saussurian thought.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

We presented a related paper (‘Syntax, sound and minimalist goals’) at the 26th GLOW Colloquium in Lund, Sweden. Thanks to the audience there for discussion, and to Robert Beard, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Annabel Cormack, Anders Holmberg, Heather Marsden, Ian Roberts, Neil Smith, David Young, and three anonymous JL referees, and to Orin Gensler and Ewa Jaworska for their painstaking copy-editing. We gratefully acknowledge that the research was supported in part by grant F/00125A from the Leverhulme Trust and an AHRB Research Leave award to Burton-Roberts.