Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2013, Qupperneq 217

On Haukur Þorgeirsson’s doctoral dissertation
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The idea of two different structural levels in language — deep structure as
opposed to surface structure — has a long and intriguing history beginning with
the writings of the Indian grammarian Pánini in the 4* century B.C., the 7th-
century Port Royal grammar, and the writings of Humboldt, Wittgenstein,
Hockett and not least Chomsky. But a short excursus into recent generativism
will suffice to show that deep structure has long been toned down by Chomsky
himself and some of his former colleagues at the MIT addressed severe prob-
lems. Already in 1968 Lakoff and Ross posed the general question: “Is deep
structure necessary?” When it comes to revisions of the Standard Theory, a cru-
cial point is the notion of deep structure and its application in syntax, semantics
and phonology, including historical phonology. Chomsky’s Aspects ofthe Theory
of Syntax (1965) was already the starting point of a clear trend that made persis-
tent headway since the 1960S: the reduction in the number and role of trans-
formations. In the various revisions of the Standard Theory, the structural infor-
mation of the deep structure was gradually encoded in the surface structure. In
its modern form, Generative Grammar retains only one highly constrained trans-
formational rule: move alpha. And GeneralizedPhrase Structure Grammar (GPSG),
a more radical offshoot of Generative Grammar, dispenses with transformation
rules altogether.
This is not tantamount to saying that Haukur’s detailed objections against the
unrestricted use of rule reordering are out of place. But it comes as no surprise
that these studies executed by Anderson and Gussmann, for instance, are flawed
in one way or other and therefore relegated to the research history. For instance,
Haukur convincingly argues that the hierarchy of rules in Gussmann’s modell of
velar palatalization runs into serious problems as the palatalization rule is in fact
a productive phonological process on the synchronic level in Modern Icelandic,
at least in natural speech and fast speech phonology (p. 63):
(i)a. Hann fór upp á þak í gær.
b. Þarna tók ég í taumana.
The ranking of different palatalizing factors such as [i, j, 1] is clearly to the
point. Other synchronic rules also support Haukur’s skepticism against deep
structure-based models. Rhyme pairs such as bleikt — seigt show that deep
structure is not the issue. The following comment is clearly to the point: “Eg
veit ekki heldur til að neinum þyki bleikt — seigt verra rím en bleikt - veikt” (p.
258). It comes as no surprise that abstract generative approaches, which re-
hearse the generative paradigm based on the Standard Theory (and its early
revisions), lend themselves to substantial criticism and hence are firmly reject-
ed by the author.