Download or read book The Limits of Syntactic Variation written by Theresa Biberauer and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-17 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the background of the past half century’s typological and generative work on comparative syntax, this volume brings together 16 papers considering what we have learned and may still be able to learn about the nature and extent of syntactic variation. More specifically, it offers a multi-perspective critique of the Principles and Parameters approach to syntactic variation, evaluating the merits and shortcomings of the pre-Minimalist phase of this enterprise and considering and illustrating the possibilities opened up by recent empirical and theoretical advances. Contributions focus on four central topics: firstly, the question of the locus of variation, whether the attested variation may plausibly be understood in parametric terms and, if so, what form such parameters might take; secondly, the fate of one of the most prominent early parameters, the Null Subject Parameter; thirdly, the matter of parametric clusters more generally; and finally, acquisition issues.

Download or read book Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change written by Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters address a central theoretical issue in diachronic syntax: whether syntactic variation can always be attributed to differences in the features of items in the lexicon, as the Borer-Chomsky conjecture proposes. In answering this question, all the chapters develop analyses of syntactic change couched within a formalist framework in which rich hierarchical structures and abstract features of various kinds play an important role. The first three parts of the volume explore the different domains of the clause, namely the C-domain, the T-domain and the ?P/VP-domain respectively, while chapters in the final part are concerned with establishing methodology in diachronic syntax and modelling linguistic correspondences. The contributors draw on extensive data from a large number of languages and dialects, including several that have received little attention in the literature on diachronic syntax, such as Romeyka, a Greek variety spoken in Turkey, and Middle Low German, previously spoken in northern Germany. Other languages are explored from a fresh theoretical perspective, including Hungarian, Icelandic, and Austronesian languages. The volume sheds light not only on specific syntactic changes from a cross-linguistic perspective but also on broader issues in language change and linguistic theory.

Download or read book Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change written by Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters explore topics relating to all three domains of the clause as well as issues in methodology and modelling, drawing on data from a range of languages and dialects.

Download or read book Principles and Parameters of Syntactic Saturation written by Gert Webelhuth and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work represents the first full-scale attempt to provide a restrictive theory of parameters--the nature and limits of syntactic variation. Focusing on syntactic saturation, Webelhuth hypothesizes that in natural language these phenomena are subject to the "Saturation Condition." He explains the principles behind this condition and demonstrates how it imposes strong constraints on what counts as a possible parameter in natural language. Webelhuth goes on to test this theory against empirical evidence from seven modern Germanic languages: German, Dutch, English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic.

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax written by Marcel den Dikken and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Syntax – the study of sentence structure – has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.

Download or read book Syntactic Variation and Verb Second written by Federica Cognola and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph investigates the syntax of the finite verb in Máocheno, a minority language spoken in a German speech island of Northern Italy. Basing her study on detailed new data collected during extensive fieldwork, and focusing on finite verb movement; on multiple access to the left periphery; on pro licensing mechanism and on the distribution of OV/VO word orders, the author refutes the traditional view that the syntactic variation found in Máocheno is due to the presence of two competing grammars as a consequence of contact with Romance varieties and accounts for the peculiarities of Máocheno syntax within a theory couched in the framework of Generative Grammar. This book contributes to our understanding of the verb-second phenomenon and sheds new light on the asymmetries between Old Romance and Germanic verb-second languages. A useful tool for all linguists working on both theoretical and comparative syntax and to anyone interested in language variation, dialectology and typology.

Download or read book Syntactic Variation and Genre written by Heidrun Dorgeloh and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the interplay of syntactic variation and genre. How do genres emerge and what is the role of syntax in constituting them? Why do certain constructions appear in certain types of text? The book takes the concept of genre as a reference-point for the description and analysis of morpho-syntactic variation and change. It includes both overviews of theoretical approaches to the concept of genre and text type in linguistics and studies of specific syntactic phenomena in English, German, and selected Romance languages. Contributions to the volume make use of insights from attempts for text classification and rhetorical views on genre and reach from quantitative, corpus-based methodology to qualitative, text-based analyses. The types of texts investigated cover spoken, highly interactive, and written forms of communication, including selected genres of computer-mediated communication. Corpus data come from both synchronic and diachronic linguistic corpora, such as LOB, Brown, FLOB, Frown, ARCHER, and ICE-Jamaica. This spectrum both in approaches and data is meant to provide a theoretical foundation as well as a realistic view of the inherent complexity of form-function relationships in syntax. At the same time, genre is treated as a category relevant beyond discourse studies, consisting of forms and conventions at all levels of linguistic analysis, including syntax. The book is therefore of interest to linguists and graduate students in the area of syntax, discourse analysis, and pragmatics, as well as to sociolinguists and corpus linguists working on register variation.

Download or read book Micro syntactic Variation in North American English written by Raffaella Zanuttini and published by Oxford Studies in Comparative. This book was released on 2014 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparative work on linguistic varieties that are overall very similar can help us determine where and how exactly grammatical systems differ from one another, and how they change over time. This book explores a range of data on unfamiliar constructions across regional and social dialects.

Download or read book Syntactic Variation and Genre written by Heidrun Dorgeloh and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Review text: "Without a doubt, the volume in its entirety is inspiring. ... The articles are all written in an accessible style, so that the publication is suitable not only for experts, but also for students of linguistics. It is recommendable to all who want to broaden their horizons and embark on linguistic studies at the borders of traditional sub-disciplines."Sixta Quassdorf in: Linguist List 22.3028.

Download or read book Current Trends in Analyzing Syntactic Variation written by Ludovic De Cuypere and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-23 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Syntactic Change in French written by Sam Wolfe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the most comprehensive and detailed formal account to date of the evolution of French syntax. It makes use of the latest formal syntactic tools and combines careful textual analysis with a detailed synthesis of the research literature to provide a novel analysis of the major syntactic developments in the history of French. The empirical scope of the volume is exceptionally broad, and includes discussion of syntactic variation and change in Latin, Old, Middle, Renaissance, and Classical French, and standard and non-standard varieties of Modern French. Following an introduction to the general trends in grammatical change from Latin to French, Sam Wolfe explores a wide range of phenomena including the left periphery, subject positions and null subjects, verb movement, object placement, negation, and the makeup of the nominal expression. The book concludes with a comparative analysis of how French has come to develop the unique typological profile it has within Romance today. The volume will thus be an indispensable tool for researchers and students in French and comparative Romance linguistics, as well as for readers interested in grammatical theory and historical linguistics more broadly.

Download or read book Micro Syntactic Variation in North American English written by Raffaella Zanuttini and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By comparing linguistic varieties that are quite similar overall, linguists can often determine where and how grammatical systems differ, and how they change over time. Micro-Syntactic Variation in North American English provides a systematic look at minimal differences in the syntax of varieties of English spoken in North America. The book makes available for the first time a range of data on unfamiliar constructions drawn from several regional and social dialects, data whose distribution and grammatical properties shed light on the varieties under examination and on the properties of English syntax more generally. The nine contributions collected in this volume fall under a number of overlapping topics: variation in the expression of negation and modality (the "so don't I" construction in eastern New England, negative auxiliary inversion in declaratives in African-American and southern white English, multiple modals in southern speech, the "needs washed" construction in the Pittsburgh area); pronouns and reflexives (transitive expletives in Appalachia, personal dative constructions in the Southern/Mountain states, long-distance reflexives in the Minnesota Iron Range); and the relation between linguistic variation and language change (the rise of "drama SO" among younger speakers, the difficulty in establishing which phenomena cluster together and should be explained by a single point of parametric variation). These chapters delve into the syntactic analysis of individual phenomena, and the editors' introduction and afterword contextualize the issues and explore their semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic implications.

Download or read book Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation written by James R. Black and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1996-11-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Kayne’s introduction to this volume stresses that comparative work on the syntax of very closely related languages and dialects is a research tool promising to provide both a broad understanding of parameters at their finest-grained and an approach to the question of the minimal units of syntactic variation. The 11 articles in this collection demonstrate the use of this tool in analyzing microparametric variation, principally with reference to Chomsky’s Minimalist program, in a variety of languages. Topics include se/si constructions, hypothetical infinitives and adverbial quantifiers in French and other Romance languages; that-trace variation, Scandinavian possessive constructions, reflexives and subject-verb agreement in Icelandic & Faroese, and verb clusters in continental West Germanic dialects; anaphoric agreement in Labrador Inuttut; negative particle questions in Chinese; imperative inversion in Belfast English; and the second person singular interrogative in the traditional vernacular of Bolton.

Download or read book Syntactic Variation written by Roberta D'Alessandro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was first published in 2010. The study of Romance languages can tell us a great deal about sentence structure and its variation in general. Focusing on the dialects of Italy - including the islands of Sardinia and Sicily - the authors explore three thematic areas: the nominal domain, the verbal domain and the left periphery of the clause. The book gives fresh attention to the dialects, arguing that they offer an unprecedented degree of variation (not found, for example, in Germanic languages). Analysing a host of data, the authors show how the dialects can be used as a test-bed for investigating and challenging received ideas about language structure and change. Coherent and wide-ranging, this is a vital resource for those working in syntactic theory, historical linguistics and Romance languages.

Download or read book The Genitive written by Anne Carlier and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-17 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the fifth in the series Case and Grammatical Relations across Languages, is devoted to genitive constructions in a range of Indo-European languages (Russian, French, Romanian, German and Swedish), as well as Finnish, Bantu languages and Northern Akhvakh (Northeast Caucasian). Definitions of genitives typically start out from the notion of an inflectional marker, often suffixal, that marks dependency relations of a noun phrase with respect to another noun phrase and conveys possessive meaning. The contributions in this volume demonstrate a huge range of variation in genitives, semantically (from possessive meaning to generalized dependency), morphologically (from affixes to different types of clitics) and syntactically (from adnominal uses to argument relations and adjunct uses). The volume contains both general surveys of genitives and case studies of the semantics, pragmatics and historical development of specific genitive constructions. It will be of interest to scholars and students in syntax, semantics, morphology, typology, and historical linguistics.

Download or read book Syntactic Variation in English Quantified Noun Phrases with All Whole Both and Half written by Maria Estling Vannestål and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Syntactic Geolectal Variation written by Alba Cerrudo and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together studies that combine both traditional and contemporary tools in the study of syntactic geolectal variation, with a special focus on a subset of Iberian varieties. There is an increasing body of research on syntactic micro-variation, but the interaction between dialectology (which makes use of atlases, corpora, databases, questionnaires, interviews, etc.) and formal syntactic studies has traditionally been weak (or even nonexistent), which is precisely the gap the contributions in this book aim at filling in. From a broader perspective, this collection is meant as a contribution to the subfield of linguistic variation and to the more general field of Romance linguistics, with special interest in Spanish and in other Iberian languages. The volume is meant for both researchers and students interested in linguistic variation or dialectology and, specifically, in syntactic variation in Iberian languages.