autonomous syntax

[Dick Hudson]

Like Joan Bresnan I normally just `lurk' on this list, but it's been so
interesting of late that I can't resist coming out of the shadows. I don't
think I understand what George means by autonomous syntax (which he
rejects), nor about whether he is thereby rejecting syntax in general (as
opposed to grammar, which he certainly does accept). Here's his first statement:

>Tom, I said grammar does exist. As has Langacker. What we say is that it
>exists as constructional pairings of cognitive semantics and phonological
>representations (word order included).

Taken at face value, this seems to say that there are just two linguistic
levels, semantics and phonology (just like Chomsky's two interfaces, in
fact!). Nothing between meanings and syllables, not even words. Take English
verbs, for example. How do we say that `future meaning' maps onto /wil/ (or
some such), whereas past maps onto /d/ (or some such), and that these bits
of phonology are on opposite sides of the bits that express the lexical
meaning? Or that "will" may be separated from the lexical bit by the subject
etc etc etc? Notice that meaning may not be relevant; e.g. possessive HAVE
has the same meaning whether it's used as an auxiliary verb or as a full
verb (1 vs 2).
(1) Have you a car?
(2) Do you have a car?
The generalisations that distinguish auxiliary and full verbs are
`autonymous', in the sense that they refer to words, word-classes and
syntactic relations, without mentioning meaning (or phonology). But I
certainly believe that its function is to help hearers and speakers handle
meaning (functionalism), and that the way in which we organise the
information in our brains is in terms of prototype-like structures
(cognitivism). Do I accept or reject autonymous syntax? Am I a formalist, a
functionalist, a cognitivist, or just confused?
Richard (=Dick) Hudson
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
work phone: +171 419 3152; work fax: +171 383 4108
email: dick at ling.ucl.ac.uk
web-sites:
  home page = http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
  unpublished papers available by ftp = ....uk/home/dick/papers.htm