In this long-awaited book the first in a three-volume work David M. Perlmutter has co-authored and edited ten essays that introduce relational grammar, a novel conception of sentence structure that offers far-reaching conclusions for universal grammar.
The basic ideas of relational grammar can be simply stated. First, grammatical relations such as 'subject of, ' 'direct object of, ' and 'indirect object of, ' are needed to characterize the class of grammatical constructions in the clausal syntax of natural languages, to formulate universals of grammar, and to construct adequate and...

Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English (SASE) presents the major theoretical developments in generative syntax and the empirical arguments motivating them. Beautifully and lucidly written, it is an invaluable resource for working linguists as well as a pedagogical tool of unequaled depth and breadth. The chief focus of the book is syntactic argumentation. Beginning with the fundamentals of generative syntax, it proceeds by a series of gradually unfolding arguments to analyses of some of the most sophisticated proposals. It includes a wide variety of problems that guide...