Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-5bvrz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T07:57:42.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Surface Syntactic Structure Reflects Logical Structure As Much As It Does, But Only That Much

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

James D. McCawley
James D. McCawley*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, 1010 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637 [jmccawle@midway.uchicago.edu]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The hypotheses that (1) with regard at least to scope, deep structure is identical to logical structure, e.g. a quantified expression is a sister of the S that is its scope, and (2) the rules relating deep structure to surface apply according to a strict principle of cyclicity, explain both why there are many systematic parallels between surface syntactic structure and logical structure (e.g. cases where surface c-command relations match logical scope relations) and why there are the derivations there are from these parallels (as where a tensed auxiliary verb in English can be in the scope of a following floated quantifier, contrary to an otherwise valid generalization).

The approach is put to work in accounting for distinctions (explored in Heycock 1995) between cases in which anaphora constraints seem to require 'reconstruction' of an underlying structure vs. those in which they do not. The resulting analysis, which exploits some hitherto overlooked details of the logical structures and an improved statement of the restrictions on anaphoric relations, has no need of reconstruction.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 34 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Akmajian, Adrian, and Wasow, Tom. 1975. The constituent structure of VP and AUX and the position of the verb be. Linguistic Analysis 1. 205–45.Google Scholar
Barss, Andrew. 1988. Paths, connectivity, and featureless empty categories. Constituent structure, ed. by Cardinaletti, A., Cinque, G., and Giusti, G., 9–34. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Bech, Gunnar. 1955/1957. Studien über das deutsche Verbum infinitum. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser 35 no. 2 and 36 no. 6. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskaabernes Seiskab.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan W. 1970. On complementizers: Towards a syntactic theory of sentence types. Foundations of Language 6. 297–321.Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan W. 1994. Linear order vs. syntactic rank: Evidence from weak crossover. Chicago Linguistic Society 30. 57–89.Google Scholar
Carden, Guy. 1986. Blocked forward coreference: Implications of the acquisition data. Studies in the acquisition of anaphora, vol. 1, ed. by Lust, Barbara, 319–57. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1995. Individual-level predicates as inherent generics. The generic book, ed. by Carlson, Gregory N. and Pelletier, F. J., 176–223. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1973. Conditions on transformations. Festschrift for Morris Halle, ed. by Anderson, Stephen and Kiparsky, Paul, 232–86. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. 1976. A transformational approach to English syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gil, David. 1993. Nominal and verbal quantification. Sprachtypol. Univ. Forschung 46:275–317.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1994. (Anti-)reconstruction and referentiality. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 12. 167–81.Google Scholar
Heycock, Caroline. 1995. Asymmetries in reconstruction. Linguistic Inquiry 26. 547–70.Google Scholar
Katz, J. J., and Postal, Paul M. 1964. An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 1995. Stage-level and individual-level predicates. The generic book, ed. by Carlson, Gregory N. and Pelletier, F. J., 125–75. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1972. Linguistics and natural logic. Semantics of natural language, ed. by Davidson, Donald and Harman, Gilbert, 545–665. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1970. English as a VSO language. Language 46. 286–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1972. A program for logic. Semantics of natural language, ed. by Davidson, Donald and Harman, Gilbert, 498–544. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1977. Evolutionary parallels between Montague grammar and transformational grammar. North East Linguistic Society 7. 219–32. Reprinted in McCawley 1979. Adverbs, vowels, and other objects of wonder, 122–32. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1984. Exploitation of the cyclic principle as a research strategy in syntax. Sentential complementation, ed. by Greest, W. de and Putseys, Y., 165–83. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1985. Kuhnian paradigms as systems of markedness conventions. Linguistics and philosophy: Studies in honor of Rulon S. Wells, ed. by Makkai, A. and Melby, A., 23–43. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1988. The syntactic phenomena of English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1991. Contrastive negation and metalinguistic negation. Chicago Linguistic Society 27 (2). 189–206.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1993. Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about logic (but were ashamed to ask). 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1998a. 2nd edn. of McCawley 1988. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1998b. Some interactions between tense and negation in English. The clause in English, ed. by Collins, P., 181–89. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
McDaniel, Dana. 1989. Partial and multiple Wh-movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7. 565–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perlmutter, David M., and Soames, Scott. 1979. Syntactic argumentation and the structure of English. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1976. Rule interaction and the organization of grammar. University of London Ph. D. thesis [Abridged version published New York: Garland, 1979.]Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1976. The syntactic domain of anaphora. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar
Safir, Ken. 1998. Vehicle change and reconstruction in A'-chains. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, MS.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin. 1974. Rule ordering in syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar