This clear and well-organized book is an introduction to Spanish syntax that assumes no prior knowledge of current theory. Following a descriptive overview of the major characteristics of the grammar, it describes facts about Spanish, such as its word order, notions of "subject," "direct object," "auxiliary verb" etc... The book combines traditional grammatical description with perspectives gained from recent research in the Principles and Parameters framework. It also presents useful theoretical concepts such as semantic roles, Case, and Predication.

This study is concerned with the structure of verb phrases in English and Spanish, and with syntactic processes involving VP and Vo. A primary focus of attention is auxiliary verbs. It is argued that the structure dominating these verbs is essentially the same in English and Spanish, as is the structure dominating auxiliaries and 'main' verbs in each language. It must be concluded that the occurrence of distinct syntactic processes affecting auxiliaries and other VP constituents in the two languages does not follow from parametrization of phrase structure. It is argued that similarities...