Semantics

[Stephen M. Wechsler]

Alex discusses two views of the syntax/semantics interface, which he calls

>"Reduced Autonomy of Semantics" or RAS, in GB, and the "Full Autonomy of
>Semantics" of FAS, typical of LFG.

As far as I can tell, the distinction between Alex's RAS and FAS reduces to
the following:  In RAS ('GB'), but not FAS, an ambiguous string (e.g. "Some
girl kicked every boy") must be assignable to multiple syntactic
representations, one for each semantic interpretation.  The GB view gains
support to the extent that these distinct syntactic representations can be
independently motivated (so far unconvincing in my opinion).  I tend to
agree with Alex that the FAS is a more reasonable model.  It allows one to
approach the syn-sem interface as an open empirical question.

Steve

o----------------------------------------------------------------o
| Stephen Wechsler, Assistant Prof. of Linguistics.  403 Calhoun |
| Spring 95 office hrs: Tu 2-4, F 11-12. MAIL: Linguistics Dept.,|
| 501 Calhoun, U. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1196.(512) 471-1701 |
|       http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~wechsler/                      |
o----------------------------------------------------------------o