In the tradition of generative grammar, two different definitions of "subject" have been proposed: we name the first one "structural", since it is based on the constituent structure of the sentence, and the second one "thematic", because it makes use of the concept of thematic role. We argue that both definitions are necessary, since they deal with two different entities, i.e. the structural subject and the thematic subject, which are to be kept distinct. In particular, we show that opacity phenomena are induced by the "thematic" subject, and not by the "structural" one (in showing this, we make use of the notion of "Complete Functional Complex" recently proposed by Chomsky); this kind of analysis allows us to dispense with the so-called "i-within-i condition", which appears theoretically unsound. Some cases of behavior of anaphors which seem to run against our proposal are also discussed, and it is shown that they can be accounted for on the basis of independent principles.
The question of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of human languages was essentially neglected by contemporary linguistics until the appearance of the research on the genetics of human populations by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators, which brought to light very exciting parallels between the distribution of human populations and that of language families. The present paper highlights some aspects of the history of the problem and some points of the contemporary discussion. We first outline the “Biblical paradigm”, which persisted until the 18th century even in scientific milieus. Then, we outline some aspects of the 19th century debate about monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages and about the relationships between languages and human populations: in particular, we will discuss the views of Darwin on the one hand and of some linguists on the other (Schleicher, M. Müller, Whitney and Trombetti). It will be seen that their positions only partly coincide; at any rate, it will be shown that Darwin was partly inspired by the problems of the genealogy of languages and that the linguists, for their part, took account of Darwin’s views. Turning to today’s debate, we first present the positions of the linguists arguing for monogenesis, namely J. Greenberg and M. Ruhlen, as well as the criticisms raised against their methods by the majority of linguists. Other scholars, such as D. Bickerton or N. Chomsky, essentially argue, from different points of view, that the problem of monogenesis vs. polygenesis of languages is a “pseudo-problem”. We however think that, although the question cannot be reasonably solved by linguistic means, it cannot be discarded as meaningless: it is an anthropological rather than a linguistic problem. We present some reflections and suggestions, in the light of which the monogenetic hypothesis appears as more tenable than the polygenetic one.
Summary The use of the asterisk in descriptive and theoretical linguistics is attested well before the 1950s (contrary to what has been maintained by Householder in 1973). It is suggested that the meaning of the asterisk was extended from that of ‘unattested form’, which was standard in historical linguistics, to that of ‘unattested form’ in sense of ‘non-existent’; a further step was to assign to the asterisk the meaning of ‘impossible form’, hence also of ‘ungrammatical sentence’.
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