Author: Ian G. Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195347080
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
This is the first book-length study of Welsh syntax in English using minimalist theory. The central empirical issue addressed is an analysis of word order and clause structure in Welsh, within the context of the Principles and Parameters theory and Welsh as a VSO language. Roberts's central question: Which values of which parameters of Universal Grammar determine VSO order? To answer it, he makes use of parameters whose values are rooted in considerations of typology and language acquisition. Along the way, he shows that Chomsky's recent conception of the Extended Projection Principle is highly relevant, although it requires a slightly more abstract formulation. Roberts's careful use of parameters, his unique cross-linguistic coverage between Welsh and Romance languages, and his reformulation of the Extended Projection Principle make this book of interest to linguists concerned with generative theory and comparative syntax.
Author: Andrew Carnie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198030290
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
This volume contains twelve chapters on the derivation of and the correlates to verb initial word order. The studies in this volume cover such widely divergent languages as Irish, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Old Irish, Biblical Hebrew, Jakaltek, Mam, Lummi (Straits Salish), Niuean, Malagasy, Palauan, K'echi', and Zapotec, from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, including Minimalism, information structure, and sentence processing. The first book to take a cross-linguistic comparative approach to verb initial syntax, this volume provides new data to some old problems and debates and explores some innovative approaches to the derivation of verb initial order.
Author: Ian G. Roberts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
An exploration of the main syntactic properties of Welsh Roberts puts forward a general analysis of clause structure agreement, case-marking & other phenomena. He also offers a comparative analysis of these phenomena in relation to other Celtic languages, Germanic & Romance languages.
Author: Ian G. Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199573778
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 673
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Book Description
This handbook provides a critical guide to the most central proposition in modern linguistics: the notion, generally known as Universal Grammar, that a universal set of structural principles underlies the grammatical diversity of the world's languages. Part I considers the implications of Universal Grammar for philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, and examines the history of the theory. Part II focuses on linguistic theory, looking at topics such as explanatory adequacy and how phonology and semantics fit into Universal Grammar. Parts III and IV look respectively at the insights derived from UG-inspired research on language acquisition, and at comparative syntax and language typology, while part V considers the evidence for Universal Grammar in phenomena such as creoles, language pathology, and sign language. The book will be a vital reference for linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists.
Author: Ana Maria Martins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191064467
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
This volume explores word order change within the framework of diachronic generative syntax. Word order is at the core of natural language grammatical systems, linking syntax with prosody and with semantics and pragmatics. The chapters in this volume use the tools provided by the generative theory of grammar to examine the constrained ways in which historical word order variants have given way to new ones over time. Following an introduction by the editors, the book is divided into four parts that investigate changes regarding the targets for movement within the clausal functional hierarchy; changes (or stability) in the nature of the triggers for movement; verb movement into the left peripheries; and types of movement, with specific focus on word order change in Latin. Data are drawn from a wide variety of languages from different families and from both classical and modern periods, including Sanskrit, Tocharian, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Irish, Hungarian, and Coptic Egyptian. The book's broad coverage and combination of language-internal and comparative studies offers new perspectives on the relation between word order change and syntactic movement. The volume also provides a range of wider insights into the properties of natural language and the way in which those properties constrain language variation and change.
Author: Andrew Carnie
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027294755
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 450
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Book Description
This collection of papers brings together the most recent crosslinguistic research on the syntax of verb-initial languages. Authors with a variety of theoretical perspectives pursue the questions of how verb-initial order is derived, and how these derivations play into the characteristic syntax of these languages. Major themes in the volume include the role of syntactic category in languages with verb-initial order; the different mechanisms of deriving V-initial order; and the universal correlates of the order. This book should be of interest to scholars who work on theoretical approaches to word order derivation, typologists, and those who work on the particular grammars of Celtic, Zapotec, Mixtec, Polynesian, Austronesian, Mayan, Salish, Aboriginal, and Nilotic languages.
Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191643688
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 673
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Book Description
This handbook provides a critical guide to the most central proposition in modern linguistics: the notion, generally known as Universal Grammar, that a universal set of structural principles underlies the grammatical diversity of the world's languages. Part I considers the implications of Universal Grammar for philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and examines the history of the theory. Part II focuses on linguistic theory, looking at topics such as explanatory adequacy and how phonology and semantics fit into Universal Grammar. Parts III and IV look respectively at the insights derived from UG-inspired research on language acquisition, and at comparative syntax and language typology, while part V considers the evidence for Universal Grammar in phenomena such as creoles, language pathology, and sign language. The book will be a vital reference for linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists.
Author: Alain Rouveret
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027208220
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 439
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Book Description
"This volume is based on a round table on resumptive pronouns which was held at the UFR de Linguistique, Universite Paris-Diderot, on June 21 and 22, 2007."
Author: George Walkden
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191021105
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
This book offers reconstructions of various syntactic properties of Proto-Germanic, including verb position in main clauses, the syntax of the wh-system, and the (non-)occurrence of null pronominal subjects and objects. Although previous studies have looked at the lexical and phonological reconstruction of Proto-Germanic, little is currently known about the syntax of the language, and it has even been argued that the reconstruction of syntax is impossible. Dr Walkden uses extensive evidence from the early Germanic languages - Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Norse, and Gothic - to show that syntactic reconstruction is not only possible but also profitable. He argues that while the reconstruction of syntax differs from lexical-phonological reconstruction due to the so-called 'correspondence problem', this is not insurmountable. In fact, the approach taken in current Minimalist theories, in which syntactic variation is attributed to the properties of lexical items, opens the door for syntactic reconstruction as lexical reconstruction. The book also discusses practical solutions for circumventing the correspondence problem, in particular the use of both distributional properties of lexical items and the phonological forms of such items in order to establish cognacy. The book will be of interest to historical linguists working on syntactic reconstruction and the Germanic languages, from graduate level upwards, as well as to advanced students of syntactic change more generally.
Author: Robert D. Borsley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139467514
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 21
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Book Description
Welsh, like the other Celtic languages, is best known amongst linguists for its verb-initial word order and its use of initial consonant mutations. However it has many more characteristics which are of interest to syntacticians. This book, first published in 2007, provides a concise and accessible overview of the major syntactic phenomena of Welsh. A broad variety of topics are covered, including finite and infinitival clauses, noun phrases, agreement and tense, word order, clause structure, dialect variation, and the language's historical Celtic background. Drawing on work carried out in both Principles and Parameters theory and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, it takes contemporary colloquial Welsh as its starting point and draws contrasts with a range of literary and dialectal forms of the language, as well as earlier forms (Middle Welsh) were appropriate. An engaging guide to all that is interesting about Welsh syntax, this book will be welcomed by syntactic theorists, typologists, historical linguists and Celticists alike.
