Semantic Syntax: Crosslinguistic Evidence and Psycholinguistic Implications

Semantic Syntax (SeSyn), the latest development of Generative Semantics, is a non-hardware realist model of transformational grammar. This Research Topic explores its theoretical and crosslinguistic developments, and how its account of propositions may inform psycholinguistic questions about language production. Unlike syntax-centred approaches within Chomskyan generative grammar, SeSyn treats syntax and semantics as inseparable components of the grammatical system. Rather than taking the sentence as the primary unit of analysis, it places the proposition at the centre of linguistic inquiry. This focus raises questions about how propositions are represented and constructed during language production.Previous work on Semantic Syntax has drawn largely on European language data. This leaves important questions about the model’s applicability to typologically diverse languages and about what crosslinguistic variation can reveal about the representation and production of meaning, syntax, and propositions in human language.Following up on Seuren (2018, 2021), this Research Topic will present recent advances in Semantic Syntax and examine its implications for the cognitive representations involved in language production. It will extend the model beyond its predominantly Eurocentric beginnings through analyses of languages from West Africa, Australia, the Amazon, and Tierra del Fuego. The Topic particularly welcomes work that connects these theoretical and crosslinguistic questions with psycholinguistic evidence on language production.The collection aims to bring crosslinguistic formal approaches into dialogue with psycholinguistic questions concerning how speakers represent meaning and construct propositions during language production. It will consider whether the SA-to-ShS mapping may reflect general mechanisms of language representation in production, while also recognizing that language-specific grammatical systems may shape this mapping in different ways. Typologically diverse languages offer a valuable test case for psycholinguistic models of language production, which have been built largely on data from a small number of European languages.The Research Topic will also explore future developments within Semantic Syntax, including a return to the concept of Prelexical Syntax; dialogue with lexicalist theories such as Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) and Autolexical Syntax; engagement with Construction Grammar; and the incorporation of the notions of construction and grammaticalization. The collection will also include two posthumous articles by the late Professor Emeritus Pieter A. M. Seuren, whose work provided the intellectual foundation for Semantic Syntax.We welcome contributions that use crosslinguistic and theoretical approaches, as well as experimental and computational methods, to develop, evaluate, or challenge Semantic Syntax and its account of the syntax-semantics interface in language production. Contributions that connect these approaches to cognitive evidence on language production are especially encouraged.Contributions may address:- The Cycle and the SA-to-ShS mapping in underrepresented languages- Prelexical Syntax and its implications for linguistic analysis- Comparisons with LFG, Autolexical Syntax, Construction Grammar, and related approaches- Theoretical, corpus-based, fieldwork-based, computational, or experimental contributions relevant to the cognitive study of language production, using Semantic Syntax as a tool for linguistic analysis- The role of the Principle of Semantic Transparency in the genesis of contact languages- The cognitive representation of propositions and the relationship between semantic analyses and syntactic structures during production- Psycholinguistic studies of sentence production in typologically diverse and underrepresented languages Topic editors: Marc Van Oostendorp, Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia, Camiel Hamans Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86584/semantic-syntax-crosslinguistic-evidence-and-psycholinguistic-implications