This comprehensive account of how children acquire complex sentences investigates spontaneous speech in English-speaking children between ages two and five. After examining the acquisition of numerous types of clauses, Holger Diessel argues that the acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of the various complex sentences in the language, the complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative functions of complex sentences, and the child's social-cognitive development.

Andrew Radford's latest textbook provides a concise, accessible introduction to current work in syntactic theory, drawing on the key concepts of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Assuming little or no prior knowledge of syntactic theory, Radford leads students through a diverse range of topics in English syntax. Each chapter contains a workbook section, in which students are encouraged to make their own analysis of English phrases and sentences through exercises, model answers, and "helpful hints." There is also an extensive glossary of terms.

'Markedness' refers to the tendency of languages to show a preference for particular structures or sounds. This bias towards 'marked' elements is consistent within and across languages, and tells us a great deal about what languages can and cannot do. This pioneering study presents a groundbreaking theory of markedness in phonology. De Lacy argues that markedness is part of our linguistic competence, and is determined by three conflicting mechanisms in the brain: (a) pressure to preserve marked sounds ('preservation'), (b) pressure to turn marked sounds into unmarked sounds ('reduction'), and...

The formal sciences, particularly mathematics, have had a profound influence on the development of linguistics. This insightful overview looks at techniques that were introduced in the fields of mathematics, logic and philosophy during the twentieth century, and explores their effect on the work of various linguists. In particular, it discusses the 'foundations crisis' that destabilised mathematics at the start of the twentieth century, the numerous related movements which sought to respond to this crisis, and how they influenced the development of syntactic theory in the 1950s. The book...

When published in 1986, this book was the first to survey intonation in all its aspects, both in English and universally. In this updated edition, while the basic descriptive facts of the form and use of intonation are presented in the British nuclear tone tradition, there is nevertheless extensive comparison with other theoretical frameworks, in particular with the ToBI framework, which has become widespread in the United States. The author has expanded the sections on historical background, different theoretical approaches and sociolinguistic variation. Intonation remains a basic reference...

Clearly written and comprehensive in scope, this is an essential guide to syntax in the Hungarian language. It describes the key grammatical features of the language, focusing on the phenomena that have proved to be theoretically the most relevant and have attracted the most attention. Katalin E. Kiss's textbook explores issues currently at the center of theoretical debates, including the syntax and semantics of focus, the analysis of quantifier scope, and negative concord.

This authoritative textbook is an overview and analysis of current second language acquisition research, conducted within the generative linguistic framework. It argues for a role for Universal Grammar in second language acquisition. Theories as to the role of Universal Grammar and the extent of language transfer are presented along with relevant empirical research. Properties of early developmental stage grammars are examined, as well as the nature of the final outcome of the acquisition process.

This book is a concise and accessible introduction to the ways in which relations between words in sentences are marked in languages. The author describes the systems of suffixes familiar from languages like Latin and also the roles of prepositions, postpositions and the use of the pronominal elements on verbs. This new edition incorporates expanded discussions of the key concepts, taking into consideration current developments in the field, and includes an updated section on abstract case in the Chomskyian paradigm.

Since the publication of F. R. Palmer's Mood and Modality in 1986, when the topic of "modality" was fairly unfamiliar, there has been considerable interest in the subject as well as in grammatical typology in general. Modality is concerned with mood (subjunctive etc.) and with modal markers such as English modal verbs (can, may, must etc.) and is treated as a single grammatical category found in most of the languages of the world. Palmer investigates this category, drawing on a wealth of examples from a wide variety of languages.

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.