Download or read book The Raising of Predicates written by Andrea Moro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-09 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the basic premises of the theory of syntax is that clause structures can be minimally identified as containing a verb phrase, playing the role of predicate, and a noun phrase, playing the role of subject. In this study Andrea Moro identifies a new category of copular sentences, namely inverse copular sentences, where the predicative noun phrase occupies the position which is canonically reserved for subjects. In the process, he sheds new light on such classical issues as the distribution and nature of expletives, locality theory and cliticization phenomena.
Download or read book Predicates and Their Subjects written by Susan Rothstein and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Predicates and their Subjects is an in-depth study of the syntax-semantics interface focusing on the structure of the subject-predicate relation. Starting from where the author's 1983 dissertation left off, the book argues that there is syntactic constraint that clauses (small and tensed) are constructed out of a one-place unsaturated expression, the predicate, which must be applied to a syntactic argument, its subject. The author shows that this predication relation cannot be reduced to a thematic relation or a projection of argument structure, but must be a purely syntactic constraint. Chapters in the book show how the syntactic predication relation is semantically interpreted, and how the predication relation explains constraints on DP-raising and on the distribution of pleonastics in English. The second half of the book extends the theory of predication to cover copular constructions; it includes an account of the structure of small clauses in Hebrew, of the use of `be' in predicative and identity sentences in English, and concludes with a study of the meaning of the verb `be'.
Download or read book Complex Predicates written by Stefan Müller and published by Stanford Univ Center for the Study. This book was released on 2002-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex Predicates examines a number of linguistic phenomena—including auxiliary and verb combinations, causative constructions, predicatives, depictive secondary predicates, and particle and verb combinations—and uses scrambling and fronting data to determine that all except the depictive secondary predicates should be treated as complex predicates. Müller's analysis of inflection and derivation is compatible with syntactical analysis of particle verbs; as a byproduct, it also solves the particle verb bracketing paradox often discussed in the literature.
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 Copular Clauses written by Line Mikkelsen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-10-13 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is concerned with a class of copular clauses known as specificational clauses, and its relation to other kinds of copular structures, predicational and equative clauses in particular. Based on evidence from Danish and English, I argue that specificational clauses involve the same core predication structure as predicational clauses — one which combines a referential and a predicative expression to form a minimal predicational unit — but differ in how the predicational core is realized syntactically. Predicational copular clauses represent the canonical realization, where the referential expression is aligned with the most prominent syntactic position, the subject position. Specificational clauses involve an unusual alignment of the predicative expression with subject position. I suggest that this unusual alignment is grounded in information structure: the alignment of the less referential DP with the subject position serves a discourse connective function by letting material that is relatively familiar in the discourse appear before material that is relatively unfamiliar in the discourse. Equative clauses are argued to be fundamentally different.
Download or read book A Unified Theory of Verbal and Nominal Projections written by Yoshiki Ogawa and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most controversial issues in generative synstax is what properties verbal and nominal projections share and where they differ. Ogawa argues that clauses and noun phrases are perfectly parallel and tries to discern their disparities.
Download or read book Syntax Theory and Analysis written by Tibor Kiss and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.
Download or read book Possessors Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase written by Artemis Alexiadou and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a cross-section of current research on the internal syntax of 'Determiner Phrases` (DPs), with special emphasis on the analysis of DPs modified by genitival, adjectival and other non-finite attributes. Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the DP illustrates clearly the ongoing debate over older and more recent approaches to the syntax of DPs in particular in the wake of the minimalist program (Chomsky 1995) and Kayne's antisymmetry hypothesis (Kayne 1994). The relative theoretical coherence among the contributions permits detailed comparison of specific syntactic proposals, providing a solid basis for further debate. Several of the papers address the syntactic questions in parallel with related semantic or morphological issues. The value of this collection to the study of Universal Grammar is also underlined by its comparative bias. Analyses of Germanic, Romance and Balkan languages figure prominently, and a number of new empirical generalizations within and between languages are discussed.
Download or read book Finiteness written by Irina Nikolaeva and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-04-06 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the nature of finiteness, one of most commonly used notions in descriptive and theoretical linguistics but possibly one of the least understood. Scholars representing a variety of theoretical positions seek to clarify what it is and to establish its usefulness and limitations. In doing so they reveal cross-linguistically valid correlations between subject licensing, subject agreement, tense, syntactic opacity, and independent clausehood; show how these properties are associated with finiteness; and discuss what this means for the content of the category. The issues explored include how different grammatical theories represent finiteness; whether the finite/nonfinite distinction is universal; whether there are degrees of finiteness; whether the syntactic notion of finiteness has a semantic corollary; whether and how finiteness is subject to change; and how finiteness features in language acquisition. Irina Nikolaeva opens the book by describing the history of finiteness and its place in current thinking and research. She then introduces the chapters of the book, comparing the authors' perspectives and showing what they have in common. The book is then divided into four parts. Part I considers the role finiteness plays in formal syntactic theories and Part II its deployment in functional theories and as the subject of research in typology. Parts III and IV look respectively at the finite/nonfinite opposition in individual languages and at the role finiteness plays in linguistic change and linguistic development. The book is written and structured to appeal to scholars and students of syntax and general linguistics at graduate level and above.
Download or read book Building Predicates written by Justin Nuger and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the syntax of Palauan that will appeal to anyone interested in Austronesian languages or formal syntactic and morphological theory. This volume proposes that words in Palauan are not drawn directly from a mental lexicon, but are instead composed at least partially in the syntax. Using original data from syntactic constructions not previously explored in the language, the author entertains several competing theories of word formation and highlights the compatible and incompatible aspects of each, through an exploration into new corners of Palauan syntax and morphology.
Download or read book Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English written by Andrew Radford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-10 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Radford's textbook is written for students with little or no background in syntax, and introduces them to key concepts of Chomsky's minimalist programme (e.g. merger and movement, checking, economy and greed, split VPs, agreement projections), as well as providing detailed analysis of the syntax of a range of different construction types (e.g. interrogatives, negatives, passives, unaccusatives, complement clauses). Illustrative material is drawn from varieties of English (Standard English, Belfast English, Shakespearean English, Jamaican Creole and Child English). There is a substantial glossary and an extensive integral workbook section at the end of each chapter with helpful hints and model answers, which aim to get students to analyse phrases and sentences for themselves within a minimalist framework.
Download or read book English Syntax written by Andrew Radford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-15 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook--an abridged version of Radford's Minimalist Syntax and the Syntax of English--provides a concise and accessible introduction to current syntactic theory, drawing on the key concepts of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme. Assuming little or no prior grammatical knowledge, it takes students through a range of topics in English syntax, beginning at an elementary level and progressing in stages towards more advanced material. There is an extensive glossary, and each chapter contains a workbook section with 'helpful hints', exercises and model answers, suitable for both class discussion and self-study.
Download or read book Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages written by Sten Vikner and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1995 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the study of two different kinds of variation across the Germanic languages. One involves the position of the finite verb, and the other the possible positions of the "logical" subject in constructions with expletive (or "dummy") subjects. The book applies the theory of Principles-and-Parameters to the study of comparative syntax. Several languages are considered, including less frequently discussed ones like Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Yiddish.
Download or read book I Speak Therefore I Am written by Andrea Moro and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are no men so dull and stupid, not even idiots, as to be incapable of joining together different words, and thereby constructing a declaration by which to make their thoughts understood.... On the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect or happily circumstanced which can do the like.—Descartes Language is more like a snowflake than a giraffe's neck. Its specific properties are determined by laws of nature, they have not developed through the accumulation of historical accidents.—Noam Chomsky In I Speak, Therefore I Am, the Italian linguist and neuroscientist Andrea Moro composes an album of his favorite quotations from the history of linguistics, beginning with the Book of Genesis and the power of naming and concluding with Noam Chomsky's metaphor that language is a snowflake. Moro's seventeen linguistic thoughts and his commentary on them display the humanness of language: our need to name and interpret this world and create imaginary ones, to express and understand ourselves. This book is sure to delight anyone who enjoys the ineffable paradox that is human language.
Download or read book Syntax written by Andrew Radford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-10 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook provides a concise, readable introduction to contemporary work in syntactic theory, particularly to key concepts of Chomsky's minimalist programme. Andrew Radford gives a general overview of the main theoretical concepts and descriptive devices used in 1990s work. The discussion is largely based on data from a range of varieties of English (not only Modern Standard, but also Belfast English, Shakespearean English, Jamaican Creole, etc.) and does not presuppose any prior knowledge of syntax. There are exercises and a substantial glossary. This is an abridged version of Radford's major textbook Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English: A Minimalist Approach, and will be welcomed as a short introduction to current syntactic theory.
Download or read book Proceedings of the 9th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics written by Stanford Linguistics Association and published by Center for the Study of Language (CSLI). This book was released on 1991 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the papers presented at the 1990 West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics are included in this volume. This annual publication, not readily available in the past, makes the latest research in formal linguistics available to a wider audience. Aaron Halpern is a graduate student in linguistics at Stanford University.
Download or read book The Morphosyntax of the Algonquian Conjunct Verb written by Julie Brittain and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book investigates the synatctic distribution of the Algonquian Conjuct verb from the theoretical perspective of the Minimalist Program.
