Harris, Chomsky and the origins of transformational grammar

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-87
Author(s):  
Giorgio Graffi

According to Chomsky’s report of the mid 1970s, he and Harris developed their theories in an essentially independent way; whereas according to some statements by Harris, some contact actually took place between them. To shed light on this issue, it may be useful to systematically compare their respective views of the notion ‘transformation’ as well as their analyses of certain syntactic phenomena. Among the topics dealt with in the present article are: the system of syntactic categories and their symbols; the notion of ‘zero elements’; the phenomenon of discontinuous constituents; the English auxiliary system; wh-constructions; the typology of transformations; the notions of ‘kernel’ and ‘kernel sentence’. Several of these analyses show many points of contact between the two scholars (e.g., the analysis of wh-constructions or that of English auxiliaries), which allow us to maintain that they surely influenced each other. The overall differences between the two models are also clear: the transformational relation holds between sentences in Harris’s framework, while it holds between underlying strings on the one hand and actual sentences on the other in Chomsky’s. As a consequence of this different view of the notion of transformation, two problems which were fundamental for Chomsky had no importance for Harris, namely the order of transformations and the distinction between optional and obligatory transformations. It can therefore be concluded that, if the two scholars certainly influenced each other when they were working out their respective transformational theories, their theoretical views were acutely different almost from the beginning.

1973 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 74-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gould

To Professor E. R. Dodds, through his edition of Euripides'Bacchaeand again inThe Greeks and the Irrational, we owe an awareness of new possibilities in our understanding of Greek literature and of the world that produced it. No small part of that awareness was due to Professor Dodds' masterly and tactful use of comparative ethnographic material to throw light on the relation between literature and social institutions in ancient Greece. It is in the hope that something of my own debt to him may be conveyed that this paper is offered here, equally in gratitude, admiration and affection.The working out of the anger of Achilles in theIliadbegins with a great scene of divine supplication in which Thetis prevails upon Zeus to change the course of things before Troy in order to restore honour to Achilles; it ends with another, human act in which Priam supplicates Achilles to abandon his vengeful treatment of the dead body of Hector and restore it for a ransom. The first half of theOdysseyhinges about another supplication scene of crucial significance, Odysseus' supplication of Arete and Alkinoos on Scherie. Aeschylus and Euripides both wrote plays called simplySuppliants, and two cases of a breach of the rights of suppliants, the cases of the coup of Kylon and that of Pausanias, the one dating from the mid-sixth century, the other from around 470 B.C. or soon after, played a dominant role in the diplomatic propaganda of the Spartans and Athenians on the eve of the Peloponnesian War.


2021 ◽  
pp. 109634802098727
Author(s):  
Josip Mikulić ◽  
Damir Krešić ◽  
Maja Šerić

The current study intends to contribute to a better understanding of the medical tourism experience. In particular, this study uses data from a survey-based study conducted on a sample of 1,209 medical tourists in Croatia. On the one hand, this study aims to explore and shed light on the decision-making process of medical tourists, and, on the other hand, to reveal which elements of both the medical institution and the destination where it is located, have largest potentials to drive medical tourist delight and/or frustration, in accordance with the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction.


Author(s):  
Juan P. Martínez ◽  
Inmaculada Méndez ◽  
Esther Secanilla ◽  
Ana Benavente ◽  
Julia García Sevilla

Starting from previous studies in professional caregivers of people with dementia and other diseases in institutionalized centers of different regions, the aim of this study was to compare burnout levels that workers present depending on the center, to create a caregiver profile with high professional accomplishment and to describe the quality of life that residents perceive Murcia and Barcelona. The instruments used were the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the Professional Caregiver Survey developed ad hoc and the Brief Questionnaire of Quality of Life (CUBRECAVI in Spanish) on residents. The results show, on the one hand, that levels of professional accomplishment may be paradoxically higher in the case of catastrophe and, on the other hand, the 98.2% of users are satisfied with the residence in which is located and 81.8% with the manner in which occupy the time. The conclusions that are extrapolated from the study shed light on the current situation of workers and residents and the influence that an earthquake can have on them.


Target ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Iribarren

This article explores translational literary Web 2.0 practices and user-generated cultural creations on the Internet, focusing on video poetry that re-creates canonical poets’ bodies of work. It will be argued that the use of for-profit platforms like YouTube and Vimeo by indie creators and translators of video poetry favours the emergence of new translational attitudes, practices and objects that have positive but also contentious effects. One the one hand, these online mediators explore new poetic expressions and tend to make the most of the potential for dissemination of poetic heritage, providing visibility to non-hegemonic literatures. On the other hand, however, these translational digitally-born practices and creations by voluntary and subaltern mediators might reinforce the hegemonic position of large American Internet corporations at the risk of commodifying cultural capital, consolidating English as a lingua franca and perhaps, in the long run, even fostering a potentially monocultural and internationally homogeneous aesthetics.


Philosophy ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 6 (24) ◽  
pp. 472-484
Author(s):  
Hilda D. Oakeley

The treatment of history by philosophers seems to have entered upon a new phase, as regards the questions both what kind of knowledge we are dealing with and what is the relation of the historic experience to reality. As Professor Guido de Ruggiero pointed out in the April number of the Journal, this interest in the problems of history has not received much recognition in English thought at present. It is the purpose of the argument of the present article to maintain that whilst there are two methods of approach to reality, the one through knowledge and speculative thought, the other through history and practical experience, a philosophical interpretation is necessary to the understanding of history, though philosophies of history as usually conceived are not possible. The dualism of experience to which reference is here made is not identical with the dualism with which Professor de Ruggiero is concerned.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377
Author(s):  
Leonardo Niro Nascimento

This article first aims to demonstrate the different ways the work of the English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson influenced Freud. It argues that these can be summarized in six points. It is further argued that the framework proposed by Jackson continued to be pursued by twentieth-century neuroscientists such as Papez, MacLean and Panksepp in terms of tripartite hierarchical evolutionary models. Finally, the account presented here aims to shed light on the analogies encountered by psychodynamically oriented neuroscientists, between contemporary accounts of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system on the one hand, and Freudian models of the mind on the other. These parallels, I will suggest, are not coincidental. They have a historical underpinning, as both accounts most likely originate from a common source: John Hughlings Jackson's tripartite evolutionary hierarchical view of the brain.


2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric

This text is part of a research conducted under the working title "What do we talk about when we are silent and what are we silent about when we are talking? - premises for the anthropology of silence about the nearest past." In the first part the author investigates the meaning of silence in the Croatian and Serbian press right before and during Croatia's Operation Storm. The ratio between silence, suppression of information and forgetting, on the one hand, and social memory, on the other, has been elaborated in the final part of the text by following reports about the anniversaries of Operation Storm in both Croatian and Serbian publics. The starting point lies in the belief that the phenomenon of silence (and suppression of information), being an immanent part of each discourse, represents an important factor in the creation of social relationships and system of value models, that it has important communication and cognitive functions and that the performance character lies in its essence. In short, silence makes it possible to form the prevailing image about this event, even if it does not construct it indirectly - through speech. The author has elaborated on the meaning of silence in the context of Operation Storm partly because studies about the breakup of Yugoslavia frequently mention silence as a manipulation strategy employed by some of the sides in the conflict (or analysts dealing with Yugoslav topics), while not a single study systematically investigates the semantic of silence and suppression of information in these conflicts. Most importantly, taking into account the frequency of direct silence in the newspaper discourse and rhetoric strategies that point at silence indirectly from the context and discourse, the author focuses on the relationship between the event (situation) and silence. In order to shed light on the way in which Operation Storm is remembered, i.e. forgotten, in the stakeholders' publics and political imageries, she follows the dailies - Vecernje Novosti Politika, Danas (Belgrade) - Vecernji List, Jutarnji List, Magazin supplement of the Jutarnji List (Zagreb), as well as texts about Operation Storm in weeklies such as the NIN and Vreme of Belgrade or Globus of Zagreb in the period between August 2, 1995 and mid-August 2006.


Author(s):  
Brian E Cox

This article follows an earlier assessment of Bentham’s views on guardianship 1 that touched on but did not explore connections or departures between guardian-ward and parent-offspring relations, about which Bentham was not as precise as he might have been. Further, he added complexity to the issue by describing parents as occupying dual roles: guardians and ‘masters’ (employers) of their own offspring. These relations are now considered, on the one hand, in the wider context of ‘special relations’ and ‘duties’ and, on the other hand, alongside some appreciation of Bentham’s personal perspectives. However, the main object of the present article is to assess similarities and differences between parents and guardians in legal, status and functional terms. It uses the profile of guardian-ward relations provided by the previous article 2 as a benchmark. The article concludes by affirming that ‘being a parent’ and ‘being a guardian’ have quite different meanings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wellington José Santana

The present article analyses critically the paradox of phenomenon claimed by Danish Philosopher Kierkegaard and Marion’s new concept named saturated phenomenon. While the concept of God, by definition, must surpass the realm of empiricism, perhaps the something may shed light over what God must be: Excess. However, Marion developed a new concept of phenomenon that not only occupies the immanence world, but also goes beyond. It is called saturated phenomenon. In order to address the question one might understand the limit of the givenness and then what does it mean saturated givenness. We probably all have had the sense of being overwhelmed by something and this can lead toward a sense of torpor or numbness. In the other hand, Kierkegaard affirms that God is so different than a human being, so totally other that we may think we’re right in demanding God make himself understood and be reasonable towards us. Kierkegaard upholds that we’re always dealing with God in the wrong way. I will argue that Marion, however, following phenomenological footsteps indicates a new path toward how to address God properly.   Key words: Paradox; Saturated phenomenon; freedom; Excess. 


Author(s):  
Emil Bernhardt

My aim in this article is to develop a possible understanding of Adorno’s thoughts on musical interpretation as they appear in a collection of fragments posthumously published in 2001 under the title of Zu einer Theorie der musikalischen Reproduktion [Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction]. I do this by using an actual sounding example, with emphasis on the dialectical relationship between the written text and the sounding realization. On the one hand, I use a passage by Beethoven (Symphony No. 1, First Movement) that is characterized by some philological uncertainties regarding articulation, explained in slightly different ways in three so-called Urtext-editions of the score. On the other hand, I use a recorded interpretation of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Austrian Nikolaus Harnoncourt. I will argue that, in this performance, Harnoncourt’s articulation of the actual passage provides a useful illustration of the tension between text and sound. Moreover, as the interpretation is also musically intriguing, it seems to function as a thought-provoking example of the dialectical relationship which for Adorno characterizes a successful musical interpretation. Thus, the article aims to shed light on both Adorno’s somewhat intricate speculations and Harnoncourt’s personal practice of interpretation.


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