Syntax-Information Structure Interactions in the Sentential, Verbal and Nominal Peripheries PDF Download

Author: Ángel L. Jiménez-Fernández
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527549143
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
This book considers the connection between information structure and syntax, exploring formal explanations to account for the distribution of discourse-based phenomena such as topic preposing and focus fronting across languages, with a particular focus on English and Spanish. It discusses issues such as word order and the diverse conditions under which types of topics and foci are licensed in different contexts. It shows the different behaviors of languages with respect to specific discourse-oriented operations to be the consequence of feature inheritance, which takes place in the different peripheries detected in the sentence. The book will be of interest to linguists and MA and PhD students of linguistics.

Author: Andrew Nevins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192897748
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This volume draws on insights from a range of theoretical perspectives to explore objects, agreement, and their intersecting angles, based on novel data from multiple language families. The chapters explores the mechanics of object agreement, constraints on symmetry, features of object agreement, and issues relating to the left periphery.

Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107354587
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1412

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Book Description
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.

Author: Ingo Feldhausen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255512
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This monograph presents an experimental and theoretical inquiry into the role of sentential form and variation in the prosodic structure of Catalan. The empirical section examines intonational phrasing across sentence forms, including SVO structures with either nominal or sentential objects and structures involving clitic left- and right-dislocations. The results show variation in phrasing that depends on syntactic factors and non-syntactic factors such as topic-hood and prosodic binarity. The theoretical section uses Stochastic Optimality Theory to model the variation and frequency distributions associated with the observed prosodic patterns. Various syntactic and non-syntactic factors are represented by alignment constraints, which play a major role in Catalan, and by constraints that limit size and those that limit the overall amount of prosodic structure. This study represents a combined approach to prosody and syntax and is of particular relevance for theoretical and empirical linguists interested in the relationship between these domains both in Catalan and other languages.

Author: ALEXANDRU NICOLAE
Publisher: Editura Universității din București - Bucharest University Press
ISBN: 6061611447
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
“The book is impressive through: (a) the general theoretical framework, well mastered, and by the global theoretical results; (b) the results related to the manifestation of ellipsis in Romanian, highlighting the specific features of Romanian within Romance and non-Romance languages; (c) the descriptive and theoretical results of the two sorts of ellipsis and the relation established between them; (d) several sections of convincing monographs regarding the syntax of Romanian; (e) many other detailed results which can be taken over as such, as they represent solutions to certain thorny problems in the Romanian grammar; (f) the ability to cover and master very diverse bibliographic references, and to critically comment on them; (g) the capacity to accommodate the old Romanian bibliography with the novel theoretical information; (h) the ability to use the diachronic information in order to support and account for certain interpretations and analyses.” (Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy)

Author: Anne Sturgeon
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027289840
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
This study of the interaction of syntax, pragmatics, and prosody in left peripheral positions focuses on two left dislocation constructions in Czech, Hanging Topic Left Dislocation and Contrastive Left Dislocation. The structure of the left periphery is delineated through a thorough description and analysis of these constructions with respect to their syntactic behavior, discourse function and prosody. Following recent work on the Syntax-Phonology interface, prosody in these constructions is shown to interact in interesting ways with the narrow syntax. Unexpected patterns of left-edge resumption are explained through the role of the PF component of the grammar.

Author: Dorian Roehrs
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027289778
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Written in the cartographic tradition, this monograph is concerned with the inner structure and derivation of noun phrases. It proposes that demonstratives and definite articles are similar to auxiliaries in the clause. Referencing mostly Germanic languages, the book argues that determiners are base generated below adjectives and subsequently move to the left periphery in a successive-cyclic fashion. Demonstrating that determiners are complex elements, it is proposed that languages vary with regard to when and what part of the determiner they move. This provides a novel account of the variation in the Scandinavian noun phrase. With various copies left behind by moving the determiner, the restrictive and non-restrictive readings of adjectives and relative clauses are suggested to follow from the interpretation of these different copies. The system is extended to the strong and weak adjective inflections in German. Proposing that determiners are auxiliaries in the nominal domain explains these apparently unrelated data in a uniform way.

Author: Liliana Sánchez
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255520
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book presents an innovative analysis that relates informational structure, syntax and morphology in Quechua. It provides a minimalist account of the relationship between focus, topic, evidentiality and other left-peripheral features and sentence-internal constituents marked with suffixes that have been previously considered of a pragmatic nature. Intervention effects show that these relationships are also of a syntactic nature. The analysis is extended to morphological markers that appear on polarity sensitive items and wh-words. The book also provides a brief overview of the main characteristics of Quechua syntax as well as additional bibliographical information.

Author: Jonathan E. MacDonald
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027289867
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book explores the syntactic nature of inner aspect from a minimalist perspective. It begins with the new observation that there are two independent properties at play in English inner aspect: the object-to-event mapping and event structure. From a discussion of English statives and Russian, it is concluded that the former property is variant and the latter universal; a minimalist conception of language variation arises naturally in this context. Additionally, an exploration of a lexical derivational approach to achievements leads to the expectation that there are no accomplishments in the lexicon. A detailed look at idioms suggests that this expectation is met. These results support the division of labor between an operative lexicon and narrow syntax in aspectual composition; this naturally poses a problem for (neo-)constructional approaches to inner aspect. Finally, one conclusion reached about the syntactic nature of inner aspect regards the object-to-event mapping: it is a purely syntactic phenomenon.

Author: Daniel Siddiqi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255210
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Syntax within the Word provides a multifaceted look into the syntactic framework of Distributed Morphology (DM) within the Minimalist program. For those unfamiliar with the theory, this monograph provides an overview of DM and argues its strengths. For those more familiar with DM, this monograph provides analyses of familiar data much of which has not been treated within the framework: argument selection, stem allomorphy and suppletion, nominal compounds in English (feet-first vs. *heads-first), and the structure of the verb phrase. This monograph also proposes a future for the theory in the form of revisions to DM including: the elimination of readjustment rules, a new economy constraint (Minimize Exponence) that triggers fusion of functional heads, and a feature blocking system.