Author: Andrea Moro
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521562333
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
One of the basic premises of the theory of syntax is that clause structures can be minimally identified as containing a verb phrase, playing the role of predicate, and a noun phrase, playing the role of subject. In this study Andrea Moro identifies a new category of copular sentences, namely inverse copular sentences, where the predicative noun phrase occupies the position which is canonically reserved for subjects. In the process, he sheds new light on such classical issues as the distribution and nature of expletives, locality theory and cliticization phenomena.
Author: Susan Rothstein
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401006903
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Predicates and their Subjects is an in-depth study of the syntax-semantics interface focusing on the structure of the subject-predicate relation. Starting from where the author's 1983 dissertation left off, the book argues that there is syntactic constraint that clauses (small and tensed) are constructed out of a one-place unsaturated expression, the predicate, which must be applied to a syntactic argument, its subject. The author shows that this predication relation cannot be reduced to a thematic relation or a projection of argument structure, but must be a purely syntactic constraint. Chapters in the book show how the syntactic predication relation is semantically interpreted, and how the predication relation explains constraints on DP-raising and on the distribution of pleonastics in English. The second half of the book extends the theory of predication to cover copular constructions; it includes an account of the structure of small clauses in Hebrew, of the use of `be' in predicative and identity sentences in English, and concludes with a study of the meaning of the verb `be'.
Author: Yoshiki Ogawa
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195143884
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
One of the most controversial issues in generative synstax is what properties verbal and nominal projections share and where they differ. Ogawa argues that clauses and noun phrases are perfectly parallel and tries to discern their disparities.
Author: Tibor Kiss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110394235
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 815
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Book Description
This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.
Author: Artemis Alexiadou
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027227438
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
This volume presents a cross-section of current research on the internal syntax of 'Determiner Phrases` (DPs), with special emphasis on the analysis of DPs modified by genitival, adjectival and other non-finite attributes. Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the DP illustrates clearly the ongoing debate over older and more recent approaches to the syntax of DPs in particular in the wake of the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995) and Kayne's antisymmetry hypothesis (Kayne 1994). The relative theoretical coherence among the contributions permits detailed comparison of specific syntactic proposals, providing a solid basis for further debate. Several of the papers address the syntactic questions in parallel with related semantic or morphological issues. The value of this collection to the study of Universal Grammar is also underlined by its comparative bias. Analyses of Germanic, Romance and Balkan languages figure prominently, and a number of new empirical generalizations within and between languages are discussed.
Author: Irina Nikolaeva
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019152672X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 552
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Book Description
This book explores the nature of finiteness, one of most commonly used notions in descriptive and theoretical linguistics but possibly one of the least understood. Scholars representing a variety of theoretical positions seek to clarify what it is and to establish its usefulness and limitations. In doing so they reveal cross-linguistically valid correlations between subject licensing, subject agreement, tense, syntactic opacity, and independent clausehood; show how these properties are associated with finiteness; and discuss what this means for the content of the category. The issues explored include how different grammatical theories represent finiteness; whether the finite/nonfinite distinction is universal; whether there are degrees of finiteness; whether the syntactic notion of finiteness has a semantic corollary; whether and how finiteness is subject to change; and how finiteness features in language acquisition. Irina Nikolaeva opens the book by describing the history of finiteness and its place in current thinking and research. She then introduces the chapters of the book, comparing the authors' perspectives and showing what they have in common. The book is then divided into four parts. Part I considers the role finiteness plays in formal syntactic theories and Part II its deployment in functional theories and as the subject of research in typology. Parts III and IV look respectively at the finite/nonfinite opposition in individual languages and at the role finiteness plays in linguistic change and linguistic development. The book is written and structured to appeal to scholars and students of syntax and general linguistics at graduate level and above.
Author: Justin Nuger
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331928682X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the syntax of Palauan that will appeal to anyone interested in Austronesian languages or formal syntactic and morphological theory. This volume proposes that words in Palauan are not drawn directly from a mental lexicon, but are instead composed at least partially in the syntax. Using original data from syntactic constructions not previously explored in the language, the author entertains several competing theories of word formation and highlights the compatible and incompatible aspects of each, through an exploration into new corners of Palauan syntax and morphology.
Author: Andrew Radford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521477079
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 580
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Book Description
Andrew Radford's textbook is written for students with little or no background in syntax, and introduces them to key concepts of Chomsky's minimalist programme (e.g. merger and movement, checking, economy and greed, split VPs, agreement projections), as well as providing detailed analysis of the syntax of a range of different construction types (e.g. interrogatives, negatives, passives, unaccusatives, complement clauses). Illustrative material is drawn from varieties of English (Standard English, Belfast English, Shakespearean English, Jamaican Creole and Child English). There is a substantial glossary and an extensive integral workbook section at the end of each chapter with helpful hints and model answers, which aim to get students to analyse phrases and sentences for themselves within a minimalist framework.
Author: Stefan Müller
Publisher: Stanford Univ Center for the Study
ISBN: 9781575863856
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 468
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Book Description
Complex Predicates examines a number of linguistic phenomena—including auxiliary and verb combinations, causative constructions, predicatives, depictive secondary predicates, and particle and verb combinations—and uses scrambling and fronting data to determine that all except the depictive secondary predicates should be treated as complex predicates. Müller's analysis of inflection and derivation is compatible with syntactical analysis of particle verbs; as a byproduct, it also solves the particle verb bracketing paradox often discussed in the literature.
Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354587
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.
