The English auxiliaries: A relational network description

This is the second of two papers comparing relational network theory with transformational theory. In Reich 1970b we defined some basic nodes and compared relational network theory with a subset of transformational theory which is commonly acknowledged to be linguistically inadequate. In this paper we shall review the types of problems which context-free phrase-structure grammars cannot adequately handle. We shall then show that each of these problems occurs in that portion of English grammar which is concerned with the English auxiliaries; thus a good test of any proposed grammatical theory is whether or not it can be used to describe a grammar of the auxiliaries in an acceptable way. Finally, we shall describe in detail a relational network grammar of the auxiliaries and attempt to demonstrate that relational network theory passes this test.