Theory of Core Grammar

FAIN: FA-12164-78

Noam Chomsky
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA 02139-4307)

To write a monograph extending, refining and organizing theories of core grammar, and presenting these findings in a systematic and comprehensive manner. A theory of grammar has 2 basic aims: (1) to provide a framework for the construction of descriptively adequate grammars; (2) to explain why the facts are as they are on the basis of general principles of universal grammar. For several years, PI has been engaged in investigating a set of radical restrictions on permissible transformational grammars (TG) that show considerable promise for attainment of explanatory adequacy without sacrifice of descriptive adequacy. General framework of this mongraphy is the extended standard theory of TG.