Grammatical theory: From transformational grammar to constraint-based approaches by Stefan Müller.
From the webpage:
To appear 2015 in Lecture Notes in Language Scineces, No 1, Berlin: Language Science Press. The book is a translation and extension of the second edition of my grammar theory book that appeared 2010 in the Stauffenburg Verlag.
This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistics or contributed tools that are relevant for current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language.
In a final chapter the approaches are compared with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The Nativism hypothesis that assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge is examined critically and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. In addition this chapter addresses issues that are discussed controversially in current theory building as for instance the question whether flat or binary branching structures are more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses that are suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a section that shows how properties that are common to all languages or to certain language classes can be captured.
The webpage offers a download link for the current draft, teaching materials and a BibTeX file of all publications that the author cites in his works.
Interesting because of the application of these models to a language other than English and the author’s attempt to help readers avoid semantic confusion:
Unfortunately, linguistics is a scientific field which is afflicted by an unbelievable degree of terminological chaos. This is partly due to the fact that terminology originally defined for certain languages (e. g. Latin, English) was later simply adopted for the description of other languages as well. However, this is not always appropriate since languages differ from one another greatly and are constantly changing. Due to the problems this caused, the terminology started to be used differently or new terms were invented. when new terms are introduced in this book, I will always mention related terminology or differing uses of each term so that readers can relate this to other literature.
Unfortunately, it does not appear like the author gathered the new terms up into a table or list. Creating such a list from the book would be a very useful project.