Generative Grammar in Europe

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The present volume is intended to give an overall picture of research in pro­ gress in the field of generative grammar in various parts of Europe. The term 'generative grammar' must, however, be understood here rather broadly. What seemed to be an easily definable technical term several years ago is becoming more and more vague and imprecise. Research in generative gram­ mar is carried on according to rather diversified methodological principles and being a generative grammarian is often more a matter of confession than any adherence to the common line of methodology which can be traced back to the conception of grammatical description initiated by Noam Chomsky. The direct or indirect influence of this conception is, however, clearly recog­ nizable in most of the papers of this volume. The most difficult thing was, naturally enough, to select appropriate papers in the realm of semantics. Apart from the special trend in generative grammar referred to as 'generative semantics' (though here, too, we might ponder on what 'generative' really means) the term 'generative' is hardly employed in semantics. The search for semantic primes, the application of the methods of mathematical logic, the inquiry into the intricate relationships between syntax and semantics and the utilization of syntactic information in semantics are perhaps the most charac­ teristic traits of contemporary semantics. All of this, of course, is at no variance with the principles of generative grammar, on the contrary, most of it has been made possible through the achievements of generative grammar.