On the interaction of phonological rules of various types

Abstract

Discussions of linguistic structure generally accept a distinction between rules of sentence structure and rules of sound structure, but there is very little agreement on further subcategorization beyond this general dichotomy. Indeed, recent discussion in the area of syntax and semantics has been dominated, at least superficially, by the question of whether it is possible and/or desirable to distinguish within the rules of sentence structure between syntactic rules and semantic rules, and perhaps to impose further subcategorizations on each of these; see, for example, the contributions by Chomsky and Postal to Peters (1972). Within syntax and semantics, however, there is probably much less disagreement than meets the eye: most would agree that a desirable goal for linguistics is to isolate and distinguish as many types of rule as possible, and to associate each type with a set of maximally restrictive formal and substantive constraints.