The Distance Variable Revisited with Reference to English

Abstract

The main thesis of this paper is that distance is a major variable of relevance to linguistic description and explanation, shedding a great deal of light on the whole structural spectrum of human language. The present paper focuses on ways in which this distance variable is instrumental in explaining various aspects of natural language such as semantic interpretation, surface-structure form, and word order. Although it focuses on the English language, much of our discussion in this paper should be equally relevant and applicable mutatis mutandis to other languages as well. If, indeed, it should turn out to be a universal of such major linguistic significance, the distance variable should be incorporated into all explanatorily adequate theories of human language.