Abstract
This chapter discusses generally recognized major contemporary currents in syntactic theory. It discusses the government-binding (GB) theory, generalized phrase structure grammar, and relationally based models of grammar. The central guiding principle of GB is that the internal structure of the grammar is modular as well. That is, syntactic complexity results from the interaction of grammatical subsystems, each characterizable in terms of its own set of general principles. The most appealing thing about GB is that it incorporates a program of comparative syntax, that is, it provides a theoretical foundation for linguistic typology. In the GB view, what appear on the surface to be major structural differences among languages result from each language setting slightly different values for each of the various grammatical subsystems. Such an approach to crosslinguistic variation was first taken in an extremely important paper that Luigi Rizzi wrote in 1978. As Rizzi pointed out, Italian at first glance appears to be very different from English, in that several constraints on the extraction of wh-elements that work for English seem to be violated in Italian.
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