Summary prepared by David Kovara (additions and comments by Frawley)
Language consists of (at least) three sub-components (or modules): meaning, sounds, sentences. To understand the third, syntax, we must first understand four basic principles: 1. Rules and Representations
We do not possess a list of every sentence we have ever seen. Just as our mind/brain does not memorize all the faces it encounters, it also does not attempt to memorize all the sentences it comes across--there just isn't enough room. Take, for example, the sentences: "Bob saw three monkeys," "Bob saw four monkeys," "Bob saw five monkeys," "Bob saw ten billion monkeys..." This sequence can go on forever. Similarly, consider: "Tom said that Bob saw three monkeys," "Alanna believes that Tom said that Bob saw three monkeys," "Sahra remembers that Alanna believes that Tom said that Bob saw three monkeys..." This, too, is infinite. As a consequence, we must consider two more properties:
A) Structure Dependence.
Sentences rely on structure, not probability. "Bob and Mary went to the store" makes sense, as does "Bob and the dragon went to the store,, but "Bob and walking went to the store" is not correct, simply because you can conjoin ("and", etc.) only like categories. In another example, the pronoun "him" can describe or replace "the boy in the chimney with his hat on sideways," because "him" replaces not the noun, but the noun phrase. Syntax, therefore, has categories in its organization. We use a hierarchical structure, with categories, and not just simple memorization. B) Intuitions about Structure Relations.
Consider the following: "Donna read the book" and "The book was read by Donna." While these two sentences are structurally different, we can still intuitively recognize their equivalence. This further suggests a cognitive system of rules and representations. 2. Empty Categories
There exist things in the abstract structure that we never really say--implied nuances that are never explicitly expressed but are nevertheless inferred and understood. For example: in "Go home," refers to and unexpressed "you." "You," therefore is empty. Similarly, "Wash," really means "Wash yourself," not "Wash himself," or "Wash herself," but this distinction does not need to be made. Empty categories have to exist because what we do say reflects there presence. 3. Abstract Principles
There are abstract principles that seem to govern the organization of sentences. Consider the following sentence: "Bob saw that Mary saw himself." This sentence makes no sense because "himself" can only -- by virtue of structural facts -- refer to Mary, who is female. Thus "himself" can only travel a certain distance in the sentence; it is restricted to a specific domain (defined by "that Mary saw").
Now consider this: "Bob saw that Mary saw him." This sentence makes perfect sense because "him" is not restricted to any structural domain--it can travel wherever it wants, and can easily refer all they way back to Bob. We, therefore, seem to be equipped with some principle that analyzes characteristics within a certain domain.
4. Universal Grammar
Green, in the textbook, states on page 185, "What we really want is a theory about whatconstitutes a possible grammar of a human language. It would tell us which properties of natural language grammars are non-accidental, in the sense that they are determined by the initial state of the language faculty itself. Such a theory is generally referred to as the theory of Universal Grammar (or UG, for short). UG is the theory of the initial state of the language faculty." This theory suggests that many of the "rules" of languages come from constraints placed on them by pre-determined faculties within our mind-brains.