The epicenter of linguistic behavior
Edward P. Stabler · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2013
Bever calls grammar “the epicenter of all language behavior” but observes that the relation between grammar and models of linguistic behavior remains unclear. This chapter reviews some major advances in our understanding of common features of diverse grammar formalisms. Stabler argues that mild context-sensitive grammars can both define the sentences of human languages (weak adequacy) and also provide the structures of those languages (strong adequacy). He also points out that different formalisms (context-free grammars (CFG), tree-adjoining grammars (TAG), combinatory categorial grammars (CCG), set-local multicomponent grammars (MCTAG), abstract categorial grammars (ACG2,4), multiple context-free grammars (MCFG), Minimalist grammars (MG), and context-sensitive grammars (CSG)) are weakly equivalent in the sense that they define exactly the same sets of sentences. These grammars are expressive enough to define the discontinuous dependencies of human languages. Furthermore, computational methods provide tools for describing rather abstract similarities of structures and languages.