A Grammar of Subordinate Structures in English (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica)

FOREWORDOne cannot help but be impressed by the scope and variety of natural sentence struc-tures. Whereas some might have once thought that a language is learned by memorizingits sentences, it is now clear that this is not possible. All normal humans possess theability to form entirely new sentences, sentences no one has ever heard, read, oruttered before. This, of course, is the creative aspect of language to which adherentsof the generative-transformational school of linguistics have repeatedly called ourattention.1The goal of this study is to describe certain subordinate structures in English andthe generative mechanism, i.e. the grammar,2underlying their existence. Actually,the former should follow from the latter, but since the exact nature of this generativedevice is not obvious, linguists have attempted to discover its properties by analyzingthe structures produced by it. Unfortunately, the linguist can seldom be certain thathis analysis is entirely correct. It is a common experience to find that a hypothesiswhich accounts nicely for a significant class of structures fails to account for otherswhich are clearly related. Moreover, the linguist can never be certain that he has notoverlooked data which would cause him to revise or reject his analysis.Difficulties of this sort have led linguists to be somewhat modest in their expecta-tions. Rather than search for some universal discovery procedure wherebyTHEgrammar of English (or any other human language) might be directly arrived at, ithas been tacitly assumed that linguistic description of the same data may be non-unique. In other words, linguists often arrive at different and distinct sets of rulesto account for the same data. Hence, some means is needed to determine which setof rules is to be most highly valued. This is the evaluation measure (or metric)1The 'creative aspect' of language is discussed in every major work adhering to the generative-transformational point of view. See, for example,...

Meanings of words are constantly changing, and the forces driving these changes are varied and diverse. Linguistic analyses are usually concerned with language-internal processes, while investigations of language-external historical developments tend to disregard linguistic considerations. It is evident, however, that an investigation of diachronic semantics will have to consider both sides: a specific theory of meaning including a proper place for lexical semantics on the one hand, and incorporate knowledge about the world and the social and cultural environment of speakers who use language as a tool for communication on the other.

The collection focuses on meaning change as a topic of interdisciplinary research. Distinguished scholars in diachronic semantics, general linguistics, classical philology, philosophy of language, anthropology and history offer in depth studies of language internal and external factors of meaning change. This broad range of perspectives, unprecedented in research publications of recent years, is a pioneering attempt to mirror the multi-facetteous nature of language as a formal, social, cognitive, cultural and historical entity. The contributions, each exploring the research issues, methods and techniques of their particular field, are directed towards a broader audience of interested readers, thus enhancing interdisciplinary exchange.