Primitive Elements of Grammatical Theory

This book is a compilation of manuscripts and publications from 2001-2010 by Jean-Roger Vergnaud in collaboration with colleagues and students. This work is guided by the scientific belief that broader mathematical principles should guide linguistic inquiry as they guide classical biology and physics. From this Vergnaud’s hypotheses take the representation of the computational component of language to a more abstract level: one that derives constituent structure. He treats linguistic features as primitives and argues that a 2 x n matrix allows for multiple discrete dimensions to represent symmetries in linguistic features and to derive the fabric of syntax (and perhaps of phonology as well.