Ramchand Gillian, Reiss Charles (Editors). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces

Oxford University Press, 2007. — 686 pages. — ISBN: 978-0-19-924745-5.A language is an enormously involved system, and it is quite obvious that any attempt to present directly the set of grammatical phoneme sequences would lead to a grammar so complex that it would be practically useless. For this reason (among others), linguistic description proceeds in terms of a system of ‘‘levels of representations’’. Instead of stating the phonemic structure of sentences directly, the linguist sets up such ‘‘higher level’’ elements as morphemes, and states separately the morphemic structure of sentences and the phonemic structure of morphemes. It can easily be seen that the joint description of these two levels will be much simpler than a direct description of the phonemic structure of sentences.In current parlance, we say that knowledge of language is modular, and individual linguists tend to specialize in research on a particular module — syntax, morphology, semantics, or phonology. Of course, the very existence of each module and the boundaries and interfaces between the modules remain issues of controversy. For many years the dominant model of the the architecture of the language faculty, including the relationship among modules, has been the Chomskian T-model dating from the1960s. However, linguistic theory has been undergoing important changes over the last ten years. Recent work has succeeded both in deepening the theoretical issues and expanding the empirical domain of the object of inquiry. While the D-structure and S-structure levels are no longer universally accepted as useful levels of representation, the nature of PF, the interface of the grammar module(s) with the auditory-perceptual system, and LF, the interface of the grammar with the conceptual-intentional system, have increased in theoretical importance. The recent empirical and theoretical challenges to the dominant Tmodel have in many cases undermined the presuppositions underlying that basic architecture and have reopened many important questions concerning the interactions between components of the grammar.One striking discovery that has emerged from recent work is the importance of the various interfaces between modules within the grammar in understanding the nature of the language faculty. Indeed, one could argue that in understanding the interfaces between syntax and semantics, semantics and pragmatics, phonetics and phonology, or even syntax and phonology, we place boundary conditions on the scope and architecture of the theory as a whole. It is not surprising then that some of the most intellectually engaging and challenging research in recent years has emerged precisely at these interfaces.Sound
Interface and Overlap in Phonetics and Phonology
Modularity in the Sound Domain: Implications for the Purview of Universal Grammar
The Phonetics–Phonology Interface and the Acquisition of Perseverant UnderspeciWcation
Phonology–Morphology Interaction in a Constraint-Based Framework
Segmental Phonology and Syntactic Structure
Structure
Structured Events, Structured Discourse
On the Relation between Morphology and Syntax
1.3–2 239
Distributed Morphology and the Syntax–Morphology Interface
Morphology 6¼Syntax
Dumping Lexicalism
Paradigm Function Morphology and the Morphology–Syntax Interface
Meaning
Remarks on Compositionality
Semantics, Intonation, and Information Structure
Conventional Implicatures: A Distinguished Class of Meanings
Accommodation
Architecture
Minimalism
On ‘‘the Computation’’
Interfaces in Constraint-Based Theories of Grammar