Development and Prospects of Syntactic Theories in Generative Grammar
Heejeong Ko · Korean Linguistics · 2018
This paper aims to provide an overview on the development of syntactic theories, with special focus on the recent perspectives couched under the Generative Grammar framework. First, the paper introduces the background and core concepts to understand the Minimalist Program proposed by Chomsky (1995). The paper presents concepts such as economy, the architecture of the grammar, lexicon, Merge, syntactic features, and checking. Some crucial differences between the Minimalist Program and its predecessor, the Government and Binding theory are also pointed out. The paper then turns to the notion of Agree and cyclicity in the phase theory. The paper also discusses recent views on projections and labeling under the bare phrase structure, and examines consequences of theoretical innovations such as exocentric structures and feature sharing. Finally, the paper comments on the areas of growth in the Generative Grammar and remarks on the importance of experimental syntax in developing a syntactic theory.