Government And Binding Theory
Government and binding is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar (as opposed to a dependency grammar) in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in The Minimalist Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, the latest being Three Factors in Language Design (2005). Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda.
The name refers to two central subtheories of the theory: government, which is an abstract syntactic relation, and binding, which deals with the referents of pronouns, anaphors, and referential expressions. GB was the first theory to be based on the principles and parameters model of language, which also underlies the later developments of the Minimalist Program.
Read more about Government And Binding Theory: Government, Binding, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words government, binding and/or theory:
“If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“With a binding like you’ve got, people are gonna want to know what’s in the book.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)