-PDF Download- On The Content Of Empty Categories EBOOK

On the Content of Empty Categories

Author: Denis Bouchard

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-02-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3110850001

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert

Towards an Elegant Syntax

Author: Michael Brody

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-10-24

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1134423535

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This collection of essays, written between 1980 and 2001, places the search for theoretical elegance at centre stage. The author shows that although the conceptual difference between 'elegance' and the minimalist search for 'perfection' may appear to be subtle, its consequences are in fact wide ranging and radical. These considerations lead to a markedly different and novel theory of syntax where most of the major features of minimalism, such as derivation, economy, merge, move, phrases and projection, are not just reanalysed or shifted to other components but in a majority of cases are dispensed with completely or reduced to much simpler notions. Towards an Elegant Syntax makes available important and some less easily accessible publications with new introductory material.

Grammatical Categories

Author: M. Rita Manzini

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-03-31

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1139500430

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Grammatical categories (e.g. complementizer, negation, auxiliary, case) are some of the most important building blocks of syntax and morphology. Categorization therefore poses fundamental questions about grammatical structures and about the lexicon from which they are built. Adopting a 'lexicalist' stance, the authors argue that lexical items are not epiphenomena, but really represent the mapping of sound to meaning (and vice versa) that classical conceptions imply. Their rule-governed combination creates words, phrases and sentences - structured by the 'categories' that are the object of the present inquiry. They argue that the distinction between functional and non-functional categories, between content words and inflections, is not as deeply rooted in grammar as is often thought. In their argumentation they lay the emphasis on empirical evidence, drawn mainly from dialectal variation in the Romance languages, as well as from Albanian.

Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax

Author: Steven Franks

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0195089715

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Focusing on issues of case theory and comparative grammar, this study treats selected problems in the syntax of the Slavic languages from the perspective of Government-Binding theory. Steven Franks seeks to develop parametric solutions to related constructions among the various Slavic languages. A model of case based loosely on Jakobson's feature system is adapted to a variety of comparative problems in Slavic, including across-the-board constructions, quantification, secondary predication, null subject phenomena, and voice. Solutions considered make use of recent approaches to phrase structure, including the VP-internal subject hypothesis and the DP hypothesis. The book will serve admirably as an introduction to GB theory for Slavic linguists as well as to the range of problems posed by Slavic for general syntacticians.

Universal Grammar and American Sign Language

Author: D.C. Lillo-Martin

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1991-09-30

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780792314196

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE American Sign Language (ASL) is the visual-gestural language used by most of the deaf community in the United States and parts of Canada. On the surface, this language (as all signed languages) seems radically different from the spoken languages which have been used to formulate theories of linguistic princi ples and parameters. However, the position taken in this book is that when the surface effects of modality are stripped away, ASL will be seen to follow many of the patterns proposed as universals for human language. If these theoretical constructs are meant to hold for language in general, then they should hold for natural human language in any modality; and ifASL is such a natural human language, then it too must be accounted for by any adequate theory of Universal Grammar. For this rea son, the study of ASL can be vital for proposed theories of Universal Grammar. Recent work in several theoretical frameworks of syntax as well as phonology have argued that indeed, ASL is such a lan guage. I will assume then, that principles of Universal Gram mar, and principles that derive from it, are applicable to ASL, and in fact that ASL can serve as one of the languages which test Universal Grammar. There is an important distinction to be drawn, however, be tween what is called here 'American Sign Language', and other forms of manual communication.

Rightward Movement Phenomena in Linguistics

Author: Kohji Kamada

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1527527387

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book demonstrates that some properties of rightward movement phenomena (a cover term referring to sentences in which an element appears to be “displaced” to the right) may be derived from syntactic principles and interface conditions within the framework of the generative grammar/minimalist program. It also argues that certain properties, which up to now have been dealt with purely in regards to syntax, can be better accounted for in terms of language processing; accordingly, the human parser should undertake explanations of part of the competence system’s output. The volume’s analysis of rightward movement phenomena leads to the conclusion that phrasal rightward movement rules in syntax fail to follow specific principles. At first glance, this conclusion seems identical with Kayne’s (1994) claim that no rightward movement rules exist. However, this work provides completely different grounds for the absence of rightward movement rules, meaning that it presents an original view of rightward movement phenomena.

Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity

Author: Kate A. Moran

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-09-27

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1107125936

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A collection of essays on the foundational themes of freedom and spontaneity in Immanuel Kant's philosophy.

Verb Movement

Author: David Lightfoot

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-03-31

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780521456616

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Work on the movement of phrase categories, mostly Noun Phrases, has been a central element of syntactic theorizing almost since the earliest work on generative grammar. Work on the movement of lexical elements, heads, has been much less central until recent years. Verb movement is now, however, the center of current research in syntax. Parallel to the theoretical interest has been the attention focused on the description of verb-second languages and on the movement operations that place the verb in its "second" position. This volume represents the latest work from many of the leading researchers in an important field, and draws on analyses from a wide range of languages. It will have a significant impact on its field.

Studies in Chinese Phonology

Author: Jialing Wang

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-02-06

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3110822016

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Logical Structure and Linguistic Structure

Author: C-T James Huang

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9401134723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In comparative syntax a general approach has been pursued over the past decade predicated on the notion that Universal Grammar allows of open parameters, and that part of the job of linguistic theory is to specify what values these parameters may have, and how they may be set, given primary linguistic data, to determine the grammars of particu lar languages. The papers presented in this volume are also concerned with language variation understood in this way. Their goals, however, do not strictly fall under the rubric of comparative syntax, but form part of what is more properly thought of as a comparative semantics. Semantics, in its broadest sense, is concerned with how linguistic structures are associated with their truth-conditions. A comparative semantics, therefore, is concerned with whether this association can vary from language to language, and if so, what is the cause of this variation. Taking comparative semantics in this way places certain inherent limitations on the search for the sources of variability. This is because the semantic notion of truth is universal, and does not vary from language to language: Sentences either do or do not accurately characterize what they purport to describe. ! The source of semantic variability, therefore, must be somehow located in the way a language is structured.