In this book, Holmberg and Platzack present a theory of the role which subject-verb agreement and case morphology play in syntax. Their theory is based mainly on a detailed comparison of syntactical inflectional properties in the various Scandinavian languages, although many other languages are discussed as well. The theoretical issues discussed include abstract vs. morphological case, functional heads, verb-second, null subjects and other empty categories, pronouns and clitics, various impersonal constructions, long distance reflexives, and the double object construction. Probably the most...

This work represents the first full-scale attempt to provide a restrictive theory of parameters--the nature and limits of syntactic variation. Focusing on syntactic saturation, Webelhuth hypothesizes that in natural language these phenomena are subject to the "Saturation Condition." He explains the principles behind this condition and demonstrates how it imposes strong constraints on what counts as a possible parameter in natural language. Webelhuth goes on to test this theory against empirical evidence from seven modern Germanic languages: German, Dutch, English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish,...

Every human language has some syntactic means of distinguishing a negative from a non-negative sentence; in other words, every speaker's syntactic competence provides a means to express sentential negation. This ability, however, may be expressed in different ways, as shown by the fact that individual languages employ different syntactic strategies for the expression of the same semantic function of negating a sentence.

Zanuttini's goal here is to characterize the range of such variation by comparing the different syntactic means for expressing sentential negation exhibited by the...

The study of comparative syntax in closely related languages has yielded valuable insights into syntactic phenomena--for example in the study of the Romance languages--yet little comparative work has been done on English dialects. This is the first comparison of the syntax of Belfast English and Standard English, using Chomsky's "Principles and Parameters"/Minimalist framework. Alison Henry analyzes various Belfast English constructions and their Standard English counterparts to gain insight into both English syntax and syntactic theory in general. In the process, she makes valuable data on...

This book is the study of two different kinds of variation across the Germanic languages. One involves the position of the finite verb, and the other the possible positions of the "logical" subject in constructions with expletive (or "dummy") subjects. The book applies the theory of Principles-and-Parameters to the study of comparative syntax. Several languages are considered, including less frequently discussed ones like Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Yiddish.

The Principles-and-Parameters approach to linguistic theory has triggered an enormous amount of work in comparative syntax over the last decade or so. A natural consequence of the growth in synchronic comparative work has been a renewed interest in questions of diachronic syntax, and this collection testifies to that trend. These papers focus on questions of clause structure which have become a central theme of theoretical work since the pioneering work in the late 1980s by Chomsky, Pollock, and others. The languages studied by an international roster of contributors include all the major...

The essays collected in this volume, most previously unpublished, address a number of closely interconnected issues raised by the comparative syntax of functional heads within the Principles-and-Parameters approach. The general theory of head movement, the properties of derived structures created by incorporation, and the parameterization involved are the main theoretical foci. One major empirical area which is addressed concerns head movement in configurations involving certain kinds of operator-like elements, for example, the different manifestations of Verb Second phenomena in Wh and other...

Focusing on issues of case theory and comparative grammar, this study treats selected problems in the syntax of the Slavic languages from the perspective of Government-Binding theory. Steven Franks seeks to develop parametric solutions to related constructions among the various Slavic languages. A model of case based loosely on Jakobson's feature system is adapted to a variety of comparative problems in Slavic, including across-the-board constructions, quantification, secondary predication, null subject phenomena, and voice. Solutions considered make use of recent approaches to phrase...

Particles are words that do not change their form through inflection and do not fit easily into the established system of parts of speech. Examples include the negative particle "not," the infinitival particle "to" (as in "to go"), and do and let in "do tell me" and "let's go." Particles investigates the constraints on the distribution and placement of verbal particles. A proper understanding of these constraints yields insight into the structure of various secondary predicative constructions. Starting out from a detailed analysis of complex particle constructions, den Dikken brings...

This book examines the interactions between the morphosyntax and the semantic interpretation of tense and aspect in the Germanic and Romance languages. These languages diverge not only in their variety of tense and aspectual forms, but also in the distribution and interpretation of given forms. Adopting Noam Chomsky's minimalist framework, Alessandra Giorgi and Fabio Pianesi attempt to provide theoretical explanations for the observed patterns of form and meaning which link the morphosyntactic properties of languages in both universal and language-particular constraints on...