Skeptical Linguistic Essays, by Postal, Paul M.
Inventory #: 00973
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Skeptical Linguistic Essays, by Postal, Paul M.. Oxford University Press: New York, 2004. Edition: First thus. ISBN: 019516671X. Trade Paperback, 8vo, 414 pages. (Originally published at $45.00. Green and black wraps with white lettering on front cover and spine. Illustrated with diagrams. Includes Notes, Bibliographic References, and Index.

Condition: Near Fine. Lower right corner was bumped and shows a slight bend to the cover, otherwise as new.

Contents: From the cover

This volume consists of an introduction and two groups of essays by Paul M. Postal, each with a connecting theme. The first, positive group, contains five previously unpublished studies of English syntax. These include a long study of so-called locative inversion, two investigations related to raising to non-subject status, an argument for the existence of a hitherto ignored nominal grammatical category, and a study of vulgar negative polarity items. Each investigation of specific English details is argued to have significant theoretical consequences. One link between them is that each chapter reveals how much of even well-studied language remains mysterious. Part I ends with a new theoretical essay that argues in a novel fashion for the controversial conclusion that it is literally impossible for a natural language to have a generative grammar due to the variety of theoretically neglected phenomena including so-called direct speech and metalinguistic uses.

The second, negative group of chapters contains seven essays, each of which seeks to show that aspects of contemporary linguistic activity are in part contaminated by elements of what is called "junk linguistics." Postal uses the term to denote work that advances proposals, puts forward claims, and asserts deep results which, he argues, can only be accepted by ignoring serious standards of inquiry and scholarship. Postal claims that the fact that much of this work is nonetheless currently considered not only serious but prestigious reveals the problem to exist at the core of the field, not its periphery. These chapters include long, detailed studies of the strong crossover phenomenon and English passive structures as well as documentation of "junk linguistic" aspects in National Science Foundation refereeing, work on the foundations of linguistics, and even widespread terminological usages. The final chapter briefly lists personal suggestions for dealing with this problem.