If the Nuclear Stress Rule of English is ordered within the transformational cycle after all the syntactic transformations, many apparent exceptions to Chomsky & Halle 1968 are predictable, for the stress patterns of certain syntactically complex constructions reflect those of the simple sentences embedded within them in deep structure. This preservation of basic stress pattern through the syntactic derivation provides a new method for determining underlying grammatical representations and deciding questions of syntax. The consequences for linguistic theory, in particular regarding the lexical vs. transformational hypotheses, are discussed.

The theory that quantifiers are verbs of higher sentences in deep structure is examined critically. It is shown that this theory leads to loss of generality on several points, and that the syntactic arguments supporting it are inconclusive. Similar conclusions are reached with respect to the proposed Not-Transportation transformation.

Part I of this paper (Lg. 46.850–98, 1970) considered the relevance of coördinate conjoined structures in resolving the balance of power between the transformational component and the base component of a generative grammar; it presented and attempted to justify the PSR grammar of coördinate conjunction, each other constructions, and sentences incorporating respectively. Part II examines the interaction of the lexicon, the phrase-structure component, and the transformational component of a transformational generative grammar of the type presented in Part I. Gleitman's grammar, Lakoff & Peters' Conjunct Movement Hypothesis, and the PSR-Lexicalist Hypothesis are compared; the Lexical Insertion Rule, strict subcategorization features, selection restrictions, rule schema, and category labels are examined. Chomsky's bar notation is used to express certain generalizations that obtain among the categories.

In addition to the so-called ‘factive’ verbs, which presuppose the truth of their complement sentence, a number of other interesting classes of verbs take sentential complements. ‘Implicative’ verbs, such as manage, also involve presuppositions, although in a different way. An asserted main sentence with one of these verbs as predicate commits the speaker to an implied proposition which consists of the complement sentence as augmented by the tense and other modifiers of the main sentence. Questioning a sentence with an implicative predicate amounts to questioning that implied proposition. According to the proposed analysis, an implicative main verb carries a presupposition of some necessary and sufficient condition which alone determines whether the event described in the complement took place. The main sentence can be looked upon as a statement about whether this decisive condition is fulfilled, and under what spatial and temporal circumstances. From an affirmative assertion, it can legitimately be inferred that the implied proposition is asserted to be true; from a negative assertion, that it is asserted to be false.

Two systems which attempt to describe the structure of the English lexicon have been presented by Katz, Fodor, and Postal (hereafter KFP) and by Quillian. It is argued that the KFP model fails because it mistakenly aims at parsimonious storage of information in the lexicon, and that Quillian's fails because it carries insufficient information and places inadequate limits on the recall of information. What is needed, then, is a lexicon which provides for almost unlimited information storage, but permits parsimonious recall.

The traditional assumption of a cognate relationship between the Gothic 4th class of weak verbs and the Sanskrit athematic 9th class necessitates heavy dependence on analogical leveling in deriving the Gothic present indicative paradigm. Saussure and Benveniste have shown that Sanskrit 9th-class stems reflect ‘form 2‘ verbal roots with nasal infix and laryngeal suffix. This results in the stem-final sequence IE *-nVH-, where V stands for the ablaut alternation e ~ o ~ ϕ. In Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, the zero grade of these stems can also appear with thematic conjugation. If such a thematic conjugation is posited for Germanic as well, the Gothic present can be derived without recourse to analogical leveling. The Gothic preterit is equally regular if the full grade is posited for V of *-nVH-.

In the history of Portuguese, unstressed mid vowels in hiatus become high, while certain other hiatus groups evidence a complex process of assimilation. A binary system for representation of tongue height in vowels permits the formulation of explanatorily correct rules to describe these diachronic phenomena, while an n-ary system fails on several accounts.

Classical Mandaic manifests two types of systematic metathesis, both of which have interesting repercussions for Semitic and general linguistics. (1) t of the reflexive prefix metathesizes with an immediately following sibilant; e.g. *ˀitsamika > éstәmex ‘he was reassured’. Though this change must be posited to have occurred in Common NW Semitic, there is evidence that it recurred centuries later in Mandaic. (2) h as third radical metathesizes with an immediately preceding simple consonant, and then optionally undergoes total assimilation to that consonant; e.g. *mišhit > méhšeθ ~ méššeθ ‘I anointed’. But if these changes are posited as having been somewhat more general, a natural explanation is suggested for certain instances of vowel length, not only in Mandaic but perhaps also in Akkadian. This nexus of developments is strikingly similar to a complex of changes posited by Kiparsky 1967 for Greek.

Since at least the time of Ferdinand de Saussure, most linguists have insisted that language is a system of exclusively symbolic—that is, arbitrary—signs. There is, however, growing evidence that language contains many elements which are iconic—that is, imitative of non-linguistic reality.