Generative grammar in Italy

Graffi, Giorgio

doi:10.1515/9783110867848.147

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“…In fact, tensions among generative grammarians were quite frequent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the consensus on the theoretical principles of the theory was far from unanimous. The embryonic community of European generativists, in particular the French one, tended to divide over 4 According to Graffi (1990), most cornerstones of 20 th -century linguistics such as Saussure's Cours, Sapir's Language, Hjelmslev's Prolegomena were translated into Italian and published in the same years as Chomsky's works.…”

Section: Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reception of Generativism in Romance Linguistics

Pescarini¹

2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics

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The reception of generativism in Romance linguistics has been uneven. In the field of morphophonology, scholars were engaging in the discussion about the tenets of generative phonology as early as the 1960s. Structuralist and generative phonologists spoke a mutually understandable metalanguage and worked on agreed-upon empirical facts. Generative syntacticians, by contrast, developed a far more intricate and technical metalanguage by exploring little-known phenomena or by turning apparently trivial facts into theoretically appealing issues. As a result, the reception of generativism in Romance syntax has been almost pathological: Generative and “traditional” Romance scholars have kept working on similar phenomena but from irreconcilable perspectives. Findings and ideas have often been discussed in separate venues and largely incommunicable terms. The reasons for this mutual indifference (rather than overt antipathy) are quite understandable. On the one hand, scholars with a historical/philological background, working on change and variation, had little or no interest in a model of synchronic competence detached from the cultural heritage of linguistic communities. Moreover, the highly technical style of generativist studies—mostly in English—hindered the diffusion of generative ideas beyond the circle of practitioners. On the other hand, generative grammarians have always had the tendency to exploit Romance data as a test bed for their theories, sometimes ignoring or downplaying the contribution of previous descriptive studies. From a generative standpoint, Romance linguistics has always been instrumental in improving theoretical linguistics, not the other way around. The relationship between the communities of Romance linguists and generativists has evolved over time. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the debate was vivid, as witnessed by conference proceedings and articles focusing on the most theoretical aspects of transformational grammar and generative (morpho)phonology, in particular with respect to the analysis of linguistic change and reconstruction. With some remarkable exceptions, however, generative ideas and methods were not readily implemented, and the history of the reception of generativism in Romance linguistics since the early 1980s can more easily be reconstructed from lacunae than documents. In this scenario, collaborative projects featuring generative and nongenerative linguists stand out, because they not only are rare but also yield exceptional results such as the Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione or the Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española, which are recognized reference works for both communities.

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Section: Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reception of Generativism in Romance Linguistics

Pescarini¹

2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics

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“…1939), a professor of History of the Italian Language. To these small groups some other more or less isolated scholars could be added (for more information about the beginnings of generative grammar in Italy, see Graffi 1990). At any rate, all these more or less scattered linguists had one feature in common: very few of them held any permanent academic job, and those of them who did, like Renzi or Stussi, were not professors of linguistics, but of other disciplines.…”

Section:  Generative Grammar In Italy Between the Late 1960s And The Early 1970smentioning

confidence: 99%

Chomskyan (R)evolutions

Kibbee¹

2010

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines Modernism as a "movement characterised by a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods". This is borne out by examination of how 'modern' linguists have routinely established an ironic distance between their own work and what went before. The exception is Chomsky, whose 'atavistic' revolution, harking back to putative early modern roots, broke all the rules in terms of the stance one could take toward intellectual predecessors in the wake of modernism. It showed how "a deliberate break with classical and traditional forms or methods" could be brought about by, not ignoring traditional methods, or taking an ironic distance from them, but reinterpreting them with a greater time depth. The ultimate irony lies in how Chomsky's opponents forced an ironic distance on him, turning him into a mere garden-variety modernist -and by so doing, helped to guarantee the success of his generativist programme.. This is a fitting opportunity to answer Koerner's (2002: 138) question about the basis for statements I have made concerning Chomsky's "earliest" published references to Saussure; it is that I spent untold hours in the Georgetown University Library in 1989-90 digging out and reading through all of Chomsky's early publications, with much appreciated guidance from . . To be clear, I am passing no judgement here about the validity of the claimed continuity; on that question, see Koerner (2002: 131-150).

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Generative grammar in Italy

Cited by 2 publications

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The Reception of Generativism in Romance Linguistics

The Reception of Generativism in Romance Linguistics

Chomskyan (R)evolutions

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