Phrasal and Clausal Architecture


Book Description

The present collection includes papers that address a wide range of syntactic phenomena. In some, the authors discuss such major syntactic properties as clausal architecture, syntactic labels and derivation, and the nature of features and their role with respect to movement, agreement, and event-related constructions. In addition, several papers offer syntax-based discussions of aspects of acquisition, pedagogy, and neurolinguistics, addressing issues related to case marking, negation, thematic relations, and more. Several papers report on new findings relevant to less commonly investigated languages, and all provide valuable observations related to natural language syntactic properties, many of which are universal in their implications. The authors challenge several aspects of recent syntactic theory, broaden the applicable scope of others, and introduce important and provocative analyses that bear on current issues in linguistics.




Phrasal and Clausal Architecture


Book Description

The present collection includes papers that address a wide range of syntactic phenomena. In some, the authors discuss such major syntactic properties as clausal architecture, syntactic labels and derivation, and the nature of features and their role with respect to movement, agreement, and event-related constructions. In addition, several papers offer syntax-based discussions of aspects of acquisition, pedagogy, and neurolinguistics, addressing issues related to case marking, negation, thematic relations, and more. Several papers report on new findings relevant to less commonly investigated languages, and all provide valuable observations related to natural language syntactic properties, many of which are universal in their implications. The authors challenge several aspects of recent syntactic theory, broaden the applicable scope of others, and introduce important and provocative analyses that bear on current issues in linguistics.




Remnant Raising and VSO Clausal Architecture


Book Description

San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, an endangered and little-examined indigenous language of Mexico, shows a range of syntactic and morphological phenomena incompatible with standard Minimalist accounts of verb movement. This work proposes a VP-remnant raising account for these phenomena, motivated by Kayne’s (1992) antisymmetry program. The book also examines the consequences of phrasal remnant movement for negation constructions, and the interpretation of tense, aspect, and mood.







The Noun Phrase in Romance and Germanic


Book Description

One of the recurrent questions in historical linguistics is to what extent languages can borrow grammar from other languages. It seems for instance hardly likely that each 'average European' language developed a definite article all by itself, without any influence from neighbouring languages. It is, on the other hand, by no means clear what exactly was borrowed, since the way in which definiteness is expressed differs greatly among the various Germanic and Romance languages and dialects. One of the main aims of this volume is to shed some light on the question of what is similar and what is different in the structure of the noun phrase of the various Romance and Germanic languages and dialects, and what causes this similarity or difference.




An Introduction to English Sentence Structure International Student Edition


Book Description

This outstanding resource for students offers a step-by-step, practical introduction to English syntax and syntactic principles, as developed by Chomsky over the past 15 years. Assuming little or no prior background in syntax, Andrew Radford outlines the core concepts and how they can be used to describe various aspects of English sentence structure. This is an abridged version of Radford's major new textbook Analysing English Sentences (also published by Cambridge University Press), and will be welcomed as a handy introduction to current syntactic theory.




Narrow Syntax and Phonological Form


Book Description

‘Scrambling’, the kind of word order variation found in West Germanic languages, has been commonly treated as a phenomenon completely unrelated to North Germanic ‘Object Shift’. This book questions this view and defends a unified analysis on the basis of strictly syntactic and phonological evidence. Given that its main conclusions are drawn from German data, it also sheds light on several problematic aspects of the grammar of this language, which have traditionally resisted a principled account. Prominent among these are: the inconsistent behaviour of German coherent infinitives with respect to extraction of their internal arguments; the existence of a less ‘liberal’ type of ‘Scrambling’ within topicalised VPs; the link between reordering possibilities and headfinalness; the asymmetry exhibited by monotransitive and ditransitive structures with respect to the interaction between ‘Scrambling’ and the unmarked word order, and, finally, certain anomalies in the reordering of the lower arguments of ditransitive predicates that assign inherent case.




Syntactic architecture and its consequences I


Book Description

This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters address research questions on the relation of syntax to other aspects of grammar and linguistics more generally, including studies on language acquisition, variation and change, and syntactic interfaces. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and give the reader a sense of the lively nature of current discussion of topics in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax ranging from the core verbal domain to higher, propositional domains.




Linguistic Theory and South Asian Languages


Book Description

The South Asian languages, mainly Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, have become a focus of interest in the formal study of language as a natural consequence of the research program of the Principle and Parameters approach and an enforced interest in exploring the parametrical space of human language. The contributions to the present volume combine theoretical reasoning in syntax and phonology with a comparative research agenda in which South Asian languages figure prominently. The topics range from issues of clause structure, serial verb constructions, cleft- and question formation, to the question of what the proper syntactic format of modification should be, issues of binding theory and raising, and issues of complementation, the clausal periphery and clausal typing. The collection of articles concludes with two chapters on Dravidian and comparative phonology and a chapter on the shaping of phonological awareness by different writing systems. The authors and the editors devote this piece of work to Professor K.A. Jayaseelan, one of present-day India’s most influential linguists.




Crosslinguistic Studies on Noun Phrase Structure and Reference


Book Description

Crosslinguistic Studies on Noun Phrase Structure and Reference contains 11 studies on the grammar of noun phrases. Part One explores NP-structure and the impact of information structure, countability and number marking on interpretation, using data from Russian, Armenian, Hebrew, Brazilian Portuguese, Karitiana, Turkish, English, Catalan and Danish. Part Two examines language specific definiteness marking strategies in spoken and signed languages—differentiated definiteness marking in Germanic, double definiteness in Greek, adnominal demonstratives in Japanese, ‘weak’ definiteness in Martiniké and the special referring options made avilable by signing. Part Three examines the second-language acquisition of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language acquisition. Contributors include: Željko Bošković, Patricia Cabredo Hofherr, Edit Doron, Nomi Erteschik Shir, Brigitte Garcia, Elaine Grolla, Tania Ionin, Loïc Jean-Louis, Makoto Kaneko, Marika Lekakou, Silvina Montrul, Ana Müller, Asya Pereltsvaig, Marie-Anne Sallandre, Helade Santos, Serkan Şener, Rebekka Studler, Kriszta Szendröi, Anne Zribi-Hertz.