Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 373Equatorial languagesLanguage group postulated by Greenberg (1987) with approx. 150 languages in SouthAmerica, the most important branches being Arawakan and Tupi.ReferencesGreenberg, J.H. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford, CA.North and Central American languages, South American languagesequi-NP deletionA deletional transformation in transformational grammar which deletes the subjectnoun phrase (NP) of an embedded sentence ( embedding) if it is coreferential withan NP of the matrix sentence. Equi-NP deletion is used in the generation of infinitiveconstructions, e.g. Philip asked Caroline to drive, which can be generated from the twosentences Philip asked Caroline and Caroline drives, The second mention of Caroline isdeleted and the form drive is changed to the infinitive. ( also control)Philip asked Caroline to drive.ReferencesChomsky, C. 1969. The acquisition of syntax in children from 5 to 10. Cambridge, MA.Rosenbaum, P.S. 1970. A principle governing deletion in English sentential complementation. InP.S. Rosenbaum and R.A.Jacobs (eds), Readings in English transformational grammar.Waltham, MA. 220–9.Soames, S. and D.M.Perlmutter. 1979. Syntactic argumentation and the structure of English.Berkeley, CA.transformational grammar