Essays by leading theoretical linguists—including Noam Chomsky, B. Elan Dresher, Richard Kayne, Howard Lasnik, Morris Halle, Norbert Hornstein, Henk van Riemsdijk, and Edwin Williams—reflect on Jean-Roger Vergnaud's influence in the field and discuss current theoretical issues
Jean-Roger Vergnaud's work on the foundational issues in linguistics has proved influential over the past three decades. At MIT in 1974, Vergnaud (now holder of the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in Humanities at the University of Southern California) made a proposal in his Ph.D. thesis that has since become, in somewhat modified form, the standard analysis for the derivation of relative clauses. Vergnaud later integrated the proposal within a broader theory of movement and abstract case. These topics have remained central to theoretical linguistics. In this volume, essays by leading theoretical linguists attest to the importance of Jean-Roger Vergnaud's contributions to linguistics. The essays first discuss issues in syntax, documenting important breakthroughs in the development of the principles and parameters framework and including a famous letter (unpublished until recently) from Vergnaud to Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik commenting on the first draft of their 1977 paper “Filters and Controls.” Vergnaud's writings on phonology (which, the editors write, “take a definite syntactic turn”) have also been influential, and the volume concludes with two contributions to that field. The essays, rewarding from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, not only offer insight into Vergnaud's impact on the field but also describe current work on the issues he introduced into the scholarly debate.
Contributors
Joseph Aoun, Elabbas Benmamoun, Cedric Boeckx, Noam Chomsky, B. Elan Dresher, Robert Freidin, Morris Halle, Norbert Hornstein, Richard S. Kayne, Samuel Jay Keyser, Howard Lasnik, Yen-hui Audrey Li, M. Rita Manzini, Karine Megerdoomian, David Michaels, Henk van Riemsdijk, Alain Rouveret, Leonardo M. Savoia, Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Edwin Williams
Robert Freidin is Professor of the Council of the Humanities in the Philosophy Department at Princeton University.
Carlos P. Otero is Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California. She is the author of
Levels of Representation in the Lexicon and in the Syntax. Jean-Roger Vergnaud is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Maryland and Senior Researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche en Informatique Linguistique in France.
Howard Lasnik is a Professor at the University of Connecticut.
Maria Rita Manzini is Lecturer in the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College, London.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at MIT and the author of many influential books on linguistics, including
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax and
The Minimalist Program, both published by the MIT Press.
Henk van Riemsdijk is full professor in the Department of Language and Literature, Tilburg University, Holland.
Joseph Aoun is President of Northeastern University.
Yen-hui Audrey Li is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California.
Edwin Williams is Professor of Linguistics at Princeton University.
Morris Halle is Institute Professor and Professor of Linguistics Emeritus at MIT.
