interpretive/interpretative (adj.)

A term used in GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS to refer to a mode of relationship between LEVELS OF REPRESENTATION. Its original use can be defined with reference to the STANDARD THEORY of generative GRAMMAR. Here, the SEMANTIC RULES which relate SYNTACTIC DEEP STRUCTURE to the semantic COMPONENT, and the PHONOLOGICAL rules which relate syntactic SURFACE STRUCTURES to the phonological component, are both interpretive, i.e. they interpret the output of the syntactic structures by ASSIGNING them a (semantic or PHONETIC) representation, which is the basis from which the MEANING and pronunciation of the sentence is derived. In the interpretive semantics view, associated with Noam Chomsky and others, it is thus the level of syntax which contains all the generative POWER of the grammar. In the early 1970s, the term came to characterize any MODEL of this general sort, as opposed to those which claimed that it was the syntax, and not the semantics, which was interpretive – the view of GENERATIVE SEMANTICS.