The core of grammar

Abstract

Categorial grammar, developed by Ajdukiewicz, was the first formal account of the general syntax of language. It was based on profound insights of Frege and Husserl as to the nature of sense and reference of linguistic expressions. Dichotomies of operator versus argument, basic category versus functor category, and names versus sentences alongside with parallelisms such as syntax-semantics are counted as essential. Further development of categorial grammar was influenced by comparisons with generative grammar and by adopting Chomsky's criterion of empirical adequacy as the main tool for assessing theories of grammar. That lead to a substantial formal enrichment and “flexibilization” of categorial grammar on the one hand, but on the other hand it resulted in abandoning original central ideas. Eventually, categorial grammar ceased to be a uniform theory and became leveled with countless hybrid theories stemming from considerations about particular linguistic phenomena, which seriously undermined the task of understanding syntax. In this paper, I propose to return to original rudiments in search for a cure for the said dispersion of explanatory power. The theory of syntax should be divided into a one simple, categorial core of grammar, in Ajdukiewicz' style, and multiple interfaces joining the core with idiosyncrasies of particular languages, to be developed by linguists.