Skeptical linguistic essays

Paul M. Postal9780195166729, 0195166728

This volume consists of an introduction and two groups of essays by Paul M. Postal, each with a connecting theme. The first, positive group of papers, contains five previously unpublished studies of English syntax. These include a long study of so-called “locative inversion,” two investigations related to raising to non-subject status, an argument for the existence of a hitherto ignored nominal grammatical category and a study of vulgar negative polarity items. Each investigation of specific English details is argued to have significant theoretical consequences. The second, negative group of papers, contains seven essays each of which seeks to show that aspects of contemporary linguistic activity are in part contaminated by elements of what is called “junk linguistics. Postal uses the term to denote work which advances proposals, puts forward claims and asserts deep results which, he argues, can only be accepted by ignoring serious standards of inquiry and scholarship. Postal claims that much of this work is nonetheless currently considered not only serious but prestigious reveals the problem to exist at the core of the field, not its periphery. These chapters include documentation of “junk linguistic” aspects in National Science Foundation refereeing, work on the foundations of linguistics, and even in widespread terminological usages. The final chapter briefly lists personal suggestions for dealing with this problem.

---

Table of contents :
Skeptical Linguistic Essays……Page 3
INTRODUCTION……Page 5
1. Introduction……Page 17
2. Subject properties of X- PPs……Page 20
3. Nonsubject properties of X- PPs……Page 24
4. The paradox: X- PPs as both subjects and nonsubjects……Page 30
5. Null expletive analyses of NEX clauses……Page 31
7. Further evidence for invisible expletives in NEX clauses……Page 41
8. Foreign tongues……Page 55
9. A novel account of NEX structures……Page 58
1. Background……Page 85
2. The LFG claim about RCP……Page 87
3. The HPSG claim about RCP……Page 90
4. The GB claim about RCP……Page 91
5. The English class: bank/ bet/ count/ depend/ rely +on + infinitive……Page 92
6. The structure of RCP cases……Page 109
7. Conclusion……Page 110
1. Background……Page 111
2. Some puzzling facts……Page 113
3. An initial approach to the paradox……Page 119
4. Expanding the database……Page 120
5. Links to raising to subject structures……Page 121
6. Generalizing over raising to object and raising to subject structures……Page 123
7. Earlier data……Page 128
8. An earlier proposal……Page 134
9. A speculation……Page 137
10. Conclusion……Page 138
1. Basics……Page 140
2. Selections……Page 144
3. Chromatic agreement……Page 148
4. Ellipsis phenomena……Page 154
5. Types of nonchromatic DPs……Page 155
6. Coordination of chromatic and nonchromatic DPs……Page 156
7. A prescriptively disfavored type of agreement……Page 157
8. Limitations of informal statements……Page 159
1. Background……Page 161
2. What type Z vulgar minimizers are not……Page 164
3. What type Z vulgar minimizers are……Page 168
4. McCawley¡¯s puzzle……Page 169
2. Background……Page 175
3. Fixed, finite lexicons……Page 178
4. Direct speech……Page 180
5. Gestural performance……Page 185
6. Beyond gestures……Page 186
7. Metalinguistic structures……Page 189
8. The controversial constituents as real constituents……Page 190
9. The irrelevance of the historical dynamics of lexicons……Page 192
10. Unregimented constituents and the nature of NL sentences……Page 193
11. Conclusions……Page 197
1. Background……Page 207
2. Older objections to Principle C accounts……Page 210
3. New objections to Principle C accounts……Page 215
4. The copy trace version……Page 227
5. Substantive conclusions……Page 233
6. Methodological conclusions……Page 234
1. Background……Page 235
2. The beginning: syntactic structures……Page 236
3. ¡° Applies blindly¡±……Page 240
4. Evolution of ideas……Page 251
5. The cavalier treatment of the by phrase……Page 254
6. Reanalysis……Page 260
7. Arrays……Page 266
8. Complement passivization and nonpassivization……Page 277
9. A remark about coordination……Page 284
10. Conclusion……Page 286
9.Junk Ethics 1 Advances in Linguistic Rhetoric……Page 288
10.Junk Refereeing
Our Tax Dollars at Work……Page 295
11.Junk Ethics 2
The Most Irresponsible Passage……Page 298
1. Automatic logical connections……Page 308
2. If it¡¯s just about true, it can¡¯t be false, can it?……Page 319
3. My accounts are natural; don’t you
wish yours were!……Page 321
4. Virtually self- evident natural conclusions that follow automatically ( surely) from something……Page 323
1. A bit of sarcasm……Page 325
2. An operation called ¡® Copy¡¯……Page 326
3. An operation called ¡® Merge¡¯……Page 327
4. A property called ¡® displacement¡¯……Page 333
5. Conceptual necessity based on ‘ nonexistent’ objects……Page 336
6. Conclusion……Page 337
14.Junk Linguistics
The Bottom Line……Page 339
NOTES……Page 341
REFERENCES……Page 387
INDEX……Page 407