Workshop on the Role of Grammatical Functions in Transformational Syntax, Champaign-Urbana, IL, July 10-13, 1999

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98-17364Dubinsky & DaviesABSTRACTA workshop titled "The Role of Grammatical Functions in Transformational Syntax" will be held during the 1999 Linguistic Institute at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. The workshop will explore the place of grammatical functions (GFs) in transformational theories of syntax, which since Noam Chomsky's 1965 book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax have held that GFs such as subject and object are not primitives of the theory, but are defined in terms of the hierarchical configurations of phrase structure representations. Recent instantiations of these theories, such as Principles and Parameters and the Minimalist Program, have undergone revisions which incorporate principles utilizing GFs in a way that appears to admit their roles as primitives. These innovations raise the fundamental question of whether or not GFs can indeed be configurational, i.e. defined on phrase structure representations.The workshop will bring together the work of leading researchers relating to these issues, including: * - the ways in which GFs have been incorporated into current transformational theories; * - whether unitary configurationally defined GFs can be identified in current transformational syntax; * - if configurational definitions of GFs have been reduced to axioms of the theory, the degree to which these structural representations of GFs yield significant insights; * - the inventory of GFs that must be recognized in the theory; * - and whether all languages instantiate all projections involved in defining GFs.