ABSTRACT
However, as noted at the outset, the approach we are exploring is motivated by more than just the traditional concerns of syntactic theory. It also aims to subsume the theory of sentence structure under the theory of sentence processing. In terms of the metaphor suggested in chapter one, we have rejected the idea of architects and blueprints. Instead we take an utterance’s edifice to be the work of carpenters who plan as they build, constrained only by the conceptual-symbolic materials (words and morphemes) with which they work and the need to finish the job as quickly and efficiently as possible.
