ABSTRACT A two day conference on phrase structure will be held at the beginning of July 1989 in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, to be hosted by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The aim of the conference is to explore the view that rules governing phrase structure are not stipulatory but are generalizations, derived from underlying principles. The conference will bring together people who have been working in this area, and will provide a forum for the interchange of ideas which should result in a clearer understanding of the issues and a focussing of research. Particular attention will be devoted to questions about the nature of categorial structure, and cross-categorial generaliza- tions and differentiations, and to those properties of phrase structure which appear not to be projections of the thematic properties of heads. Exploration of this topic will contribute toward understanding the degree to which rules governing prhase structure can be considered an autonomous component in the mod- ular theory of syntax, as well as toward an understanding of the rule system itself. An edited collection of papers resulting from the conference will be published. The conference focuses on a related set of questions which are at the heart of linguistic theory, dealing with the funda- mental organization of grammatical systems. The participants in the conference are leading theoreticians who have been working recently on the topics to be discussed. The conference can be expected to provide valuable direction to their work, and also make a substantive contribution to the field in the publication of the conference papers.
