Number is a major research domain in semantics, syntax and morphology. However, no current theory of number is applicable to all three fields. In this work, the author argues that a unified theory is not only possible, but necessary for the study of Universal Grammar. Through insightful analysis of unfamiliar data, the author shows that one and the same feature set is implicated in semantic and morphological number phenomena alike, with syntax acting as the conduit between the two. At the heart of the study is an original treatment of Kiowa, a North American language with a remarkable...
Number is a major research domain in semantics, syntax and morphology. However, no current theory of number is applicable to all three fields. In t...
Phi-features, such as person, number, and gender, present a rare opportunity for syntacticians, morphologists and semanticists to collaborate on a research enterprise in which they all have an equal stake and which they all approach with data and insights from their own fields. This volume is the first to attempt to bring together these different strands and styles of research. It presents the core questions, major results, and new directions of this emergent area of linguistic theory and shows how Phi Theory casts light on the nature of interfaces and the structure of the grammar. The book...
Phi-features, such as person, number, and gender, present a rare opportunity for syntacticians, morphologists and semanticists to collaborate on a res...
Phi-features, such as person, number, and gender, present a rare opportunity for syntacticians, morphologists and semanticists to collaborate on a research enterprise in which they all have an equal stake and which they all approach with data and insights from their own fields. This volume is the first to attempt to bring together these different strands and styles of research. It presents the core questions, major results, and new directions of this emergent area of linguistic theory and shows how Phi Theory casts light on the nature of interfaces and the structure of the grammar. The book...
Phi-features, such as person, number, and gender, present a rare opportunity for syntacticians, morphologists and semanticists to collaborate on a res...
Number is a major research domain in semantics, syntax and morphology. However, no current theory of number is applicable to all three fields. In this work, the author argues that a unified theory is not only possible, but necessary for the study of Universal Grammar. Through insightful analysis of unfamiliar data, the author shows that one and the same feature set is implicated in semantic and morphological number phenomena alike, with syntax acting as the conduit between the two. At the heart of the study is an original treatment of Kiowa, a North American language with a remarkable...
Number is a major research domain in semantics, syntax and morphology. However, no current theory of number is applicable to all three fields. In t...
What is the nature of syntactic structure? Why do some languages have radically free word order ('nonconfigurationality')? Do parameters vary independently (the micro-view) or can they co-vary en masse (the macro-view)? Mirrors and Microparameters examines these questions by looking beyond the definitional criterion of nonconfigurationality - that arguments may be freely ordered, omitted, and split. Drawing on data from Kiowa, a member of the largely undescribed Kiowa-Tanoan language family, the book reveals that classically nonconfigurational languages can nonetheless exhibit robustly...
What is the nature of syntactic structure? Why do some languages have radically free word order ('nonconfigurationality')? Do parameters vary independ...
What is the nature of syntactic structure? Why do some languages have radically free word order ('nonconfigurationality')? Do parameters vary independently (the micro-view) or can they co-vary en masse (the macro-view)? Mirrors and Microparameters examines these questions by looking beyond the definitional criterion of nonconfigurationality - that arguments may be freely ordered, omitted, and split. Drawing on data from Kiowa, a member of the largely undescribed Kiowa-Tanoan language family, the book reveals that classically nonconfigurational languages can nonetheless exhibit robustly...
What is the nature of syntactic structure? Why do some languages have radically free word order ('nonconfigurationality')? Do parameters vary independ...
Impossible Persons, Daniel Harbour's comprehensive and groundbreaking formal theory of grammatical person, upends understanding of a universal and ubiquitous grammatical category. Breaking with much past work, Harbour establishes three core theses, one empirical, one theoretical, and one metatheoretical. Together, these redefine the data subsumed under the rubric of "person," simplify the feature inventory that a theory of person must posit, and restructure the metatheory in which feature theory as a whole resides.
At its heart, Impossible Persons poses a simple...
Impossible Persons, Daniel Harbour's comprehensive and groundbreaking formal theory of grammatical person, upends understanding of a univer...