Explanatory Potential of GG as Seen from the Analysis of ECM Structures
Wei Liu · Journal of Beijing Jiaotong University · 2005
Generative Grammar has taken explanatory adequacy as an ultimate goal of linguistic theories ever since the publication of Syntactic Structures. PPT developed in 1980s can give good explanation to many linguistic phenomena, but MP in 1990s is even stronger in terms of explanatory adequacy. The analysis of English ECM structures and other non-finite clauses is a good example in showing that MP can explain more linguistic data, and its explanation is unitary at that.