Linguistic Theory in America (2nd Edition)

Linguistic Theory in America (2nd Edition) documents the origins and development of the world's principal linguistic theory, transformational generative grammar (Chomskyan linguistics). The book treats all aspects of this development, from the 1950s to the present, with emphasis on two specific topics: the amazingly rapid victory of transformational grammar over the American structuralist tradition from which it arose; and the internal debate between "generative semantics" and "interpretive semantics" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The second edition covers the latest approaches to syntax--the government-biding theory, generalized phrase structure grammar, and lexical-functional grammar.