This book deals with the syntax of the free word order phenomenon in a wide range of languages - in particular, German, Japanese, Kannada, Malayalam, Serbo-Croatian, Tagalog, Tongan, and Turkish - in some of which the phenomenon was previously unstudied. The different articles offer ways of analyzing free word order under minimalist assumptions, with respect to the question of how it is acquired, how a typology of free word order languages can be derived, and in connection with its relatedness to information structural factors.
This book deals with the syntax of the free word order phenomenon in a wide range of languages - in particular, German, Japanese, Kannada, Malayalam, ...
This book presents a development of Jean Lowenstamm's idea that phonological constituent structure can be reduced to a strict sequence of non-branching Onsets and non-branching Nuclei. The approach at hand is known as 'CVCV', and emerged from Government Phonology. Since its very beginnings in the early 80s, the central claim of this theory has been that syllable-based generalisations are due to lateral relations among constituents, rather than to the familiar arboreal structure. This book shows that Standard Government Phonology did not go far enough in implementing this idea. CVCV...
This book presents a development of Jean Lowenstamm's idea that phonological constituent structure can be reduced to a strict sequence of non-branc...
Vowel Harmony and Correspondence Theory covers the major issues in the generative analysis of vowel harmony and vowel harmony typology. The book offers an economical account of the most prominent features of vowel harmony systems (root control, affix control, dominance, vowel opacity, and neutrality) within the framework of optimality theory, extending the notion of correspondence to the syntagmatic dimension.The book contains a typological overview of vowel harmony patterns, an introduction to the basics of optimality theory including some of its most recent extensions and detailed studies...
Vowel Harmony and Correspondence Theory covers the major issues in the generative analysis of vowel harmony and vowel harmony typology. The book offer...
This book contains 14 articles by Teun Hoekstra (1953-1998) on syntactic structure. Some focus on the structure of the DP, others focus on the sentence as a whole, others still deal explicitly with parallels between the two. The book consists of the following four sections: "Argument structure," "T-chains," "The morpho-syntax of verbal and nominal projections," and "Small clauses." The last section contains a long article presenting a comprehensive overview of Hoekstra's well developed ideas on the small clause.
This book contains 14 articles by Teun Hoekstra (1953-1998) on syntactic structure. Some focus on the structure of the DP, others focus on the sent...
This volume explores in detail the empirical and conceptual content of the 'Minimal Link' condition (MLC) in the grammar, which constrains the length of movement dependencies in natural language. The authors investigate MLC effects in domains such as Stylistic Fronting, multiple wh-questions, double object constructions and transitives in ergative languages. Among the conceptual issues raised by the authors is the role of MLC at the interface between syntax proper and other grammatical modules (e.g. phonology), and the question whether MLC is a principle in its own right or its effects may be...
This volume explores in detail the empirical and conceptual content of the 'Minimal Link' condition (MLC) in the grammar, which constrains the length ...
Norwegian Modals is a detailed description of the syntactic and semantic properties of modals in Norwegian. Modal verbs in Mainland Scandinavian languages have received much less attention than their English and German counterparts, hence this book seizes the opportunity to present a range of new data and generalizations relevant for the study of Scandinavian languages, but also for the study of modality in Germanic and other languages. The book critically evaluates a range of proposals from the modality literature, focusing on the Theta-properties and the scopal properties of...
Norwegian Modals is a detailed description of the syntactic and semantic properties of modals in Norwegian. Modal verbs in Mainland Scandi...
A large part of syntax is concerned with movement. Accordingly, one of the most central questions of syntax is why elements move at all, and why they move to certain specific positions. A powerful idea of current syntactic theorizing is that certain morpho-syntactic features must be checked by some element moving to their position and thereby act as triggers for movement. This book addresses the appropriateness of such an approach and discusses in detail the ways in which syntactic theory should deal with triggering mechanisms, what triggers should be allowed, and how a variety of...
A large part of syntax is concerned with movement. Accordingly, one of the most central questions of syntax is why elements move at all, and why th...
Theta Theory explores the lexicon as an interface in the strict sense, as facilitating the flow of information between cognition and the computational system of language. It argues for the traditional concept of a listed lexicon, where semantic roles are encoded as features of verbs, and against event decomposition. Part one of the book discusses the link between cognition and the lexicon. Mainstream theories of lexical semantics are critically reviewed. Furthermore, this part provides an extensive description of the relevant data in German, including agentivity, causation, psychological...
Theta Theory explores the lexicon as an interface in the strict sense, as facilitating the flow of information between cognition and the computational...
This book contains a number of studies on modern approaches to phonological segment structure. There are three main sections: (i) a general section, concerned with the basic theory of segmental structure, features, and the organization of segmental structure into feature-geometric trees, (ii) the representation and behaviour of nasality, and (iii) the representation and behaviour of the laryngeal features.
This book contains a number of studies on modern approaches to phonological segment structure. There are three main sections: (i) a general sectio...
This study addresses the problems scrambling langauges provide for the existing syntactic theories by analyzing the interaction of semantic and discourse functional factors with syntactic properties of word order in this type of languages, and by discussing the implications of this interaction for Universal Grammar. Three interrelated goals are carefully followed in this work. The first is to analyze the syntactic structure of Persian, a language which exhibits free word order. With this analysis, the author has accounted for the relative order of categorized expressions, the motivation for...
This study addresses the problems scrambling langauges provide for the existing syntactic theories by analyzing the interaction of semantic and discou...
