revised extended standard theory (REST)

The name given to the revised version of the EXTENDED STANDARD THEORY, proposed by Noam Chomsky in the mid-1970s, following the adoption of the TRACE convention on the application of MOVEMENT RULES. There are several aspects to the ‘revision’: the base component of the GRAMMAR now incorporates the LEXICAL hypothesis and the X-BAR convention; the notion of SURFACE STRUCTURE is supplemented by the notion of SHALLOW structure, which provides the input to the SEMANTIC rules (as opposed to the DEEP STRUCTURES of standard theory); there are two semantic components and two LEVELS of semantic REPRESENTATION (LOGICAL FORM and full semantic representation); and the DESCRIPTIVE POWER and number of TRANSFORMATIONS is much reduced.