Editing Syntax (section)

== Theories ==
{{See also|Theory of language}}
There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax. One school of thought, founded in the works of [[Derek Bickerton]],<ref>See {{Cite book |last=Bickerton |first=Derek |title=Language & Species |date=1990 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=0-226-04610-9 |location=Chicago}} and, for more recent advances, {{cite book |title=Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax |editor-last=Bickerton |editor-first=Derek |editor-last2=Szathmáry |editor-first2=Eörs |date=2009 |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |isbn=978-0-262-01356-7 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref> sees syntax as a branch of biology, since it conceives of syntax as the study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human [[mind]]. Other linguists (e.g., [[Gerald Gazdar]]) take a more [[Philosophy of mathematics#Platonism|Platonistic]] view since they regard syntax to be the study of an abstract [[formal system]].<ref>{{Cite interview |last=Gazdar |first=Gerald |interviewer=Ted Briscoe |title=Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar |url=http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/research/nlp/gazdar/briscoe/gpsg.html#SECTION00040000000000000000 |access-date=2008-06-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051122163306/http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/research/nlp/gazdar/briscoe/gpsg.html |archive-date=2005-11-22 |date=2 May 2001}}</ref> Yet others (e.g., [[Joseph Greenberg]]) consider syntax a taxonomical device to reach broad generalizations across languages.

Syntacticians have attempted to explain the causes of word-order variation within individual languages and cross-linguistically. Much of such work has been done within the framework of generative grammar, which holds that syntax depends on a [[universal grammar|genetic endowment]] common to the human species. In that framework and in others, [[linguistic typology]] and [[linguistic universal|universals]] have been primary explicanda.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Explaining Language Universals |journal=The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology |year=2010 |last=Moravcsik |first=Edith |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199281251.013.0005 |url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199281251.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199281251-e-005 |accessdate=2022-03-13}}</ref>

Alternative explanations, such as those by [[functional linguistics|functional linguists]], have been sought in [[language processing in the brain|language processing]]. It is suggested that the brain finds it easier to [[parsing|parse]] [[syntactic tree diagram|syntactic patterns]] that are either right- or left-[[branching (linguistics)|branching]] but not mixed. The most-widely held approach is the performance–grammar correspondence hypothesis by [[John A. Hawkins (linguist)|John A. Hawkins]], who suggests that language is a non-innate [[adaptive system|adaptation]] to innate [[Cognition|cognitive]] mechanisms. Cross-linguistic tendencies are considered as being based on language users' preference for grammars that are organized efficiently and on their avoidance of word orderings that cause processing difficulty. Some languages, however, exhibit regular inefficient patterning such as the VO languages [[Chinese language|Chinese]], with the [[adpositional phrase]] before the verb, and [[Finnish grammar|Finnish]], which has postpositions, but there are few other profoundly exceptional languages.<ref name="processing">{{Cite book |last=Song |first=Jae Jung |title=Word Order |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-03393-0 |location=New York}}</ref> More recently, it is suggested that the left- versus right-branching patterns are cross-linguistically related only to the place of role-marking connectives ([[adpositions]] and [[subordinator (grammar)|subordinators]]), which links the phenomena with the semantic mapping of sentences.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Austin |first=Patrik |year=2021 |title=A semantic and pragmatic explanation of harmony |journal=Acta Linguistica Hafniensia |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=1–23 |doi=10.1080/03740463.2021.1987685 |s2cid=244941417 |doi-access=free |hdl=10138/356149 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>