autonomy and related issues

[Noel Rude]

Greetings all,

        Yes to my mind Edith sums it up well.  Though I might add that Givon
has never repudiated "transformations" per se.  In fact (I've heard him
say) the Chomskians ought have kept them.  Transformations are simply a
mathematical way of relating structures to one another.  The notion,
e.g., has given us more precision in describing voice constructions,
though most of us would assume the Chomskians' "autonomous" level of
deep structure superfluous.  In our tradition transformations mediate
between "surface structure" and semantic case roles and
discourse/pragmatics.  Such "transformations" can be thought to preserve
semantic structure and meaning, but as functionalists we will note that
they add a discourse/pragmatic perspective.

        Noel