Ebook: Syntactic Patterns in Navaho and Huichol

Source: International Journal of American Linguistics, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 121-127
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1263956The striking similarity between Grimes's Huichol Syntax and my Navaho Syntax (reviewed by Mary L. Foster and Kalon Kelley, IJAL 32.290-91, 291-94) results not simply from the rather obvious influence that Hockett's work has had on both. It results also in no small measure from efforts to explore the relationship of pattern analysis (hierarchies of immediate constituents) to transformational analysis. Grimes regards transformational theory as a tool in 'the linguist's toolbox' (p. 5). He describes Huichol immediate constituents without assigning cut numbers to indicate hierarchical rankings, and he interprets as transformations certain combinations of constituents which would, in the light of presentday theory, be assigned to the phrase structure component of a grammar. Some of the transformations which he identifies, however, would not be objected to by proponents of generative theory.