Infinitival syntax : infinitivus pro participio as a repair strategy / Tanja Schmid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schmid, Tanja.

Series:

Linguistik aktuell ; Bd. 79.

Linguistik aktuell = Linguistics today, 0166-0829 ; 79

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Infinitival constructions.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Verb.

Germanic languages--Infinitival constructions.

Germanic languages.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (267 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub., c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This monograph offers a new analysis of West Germanic 'Infinitivus Pro Participio' (IPP) constructions, within the framework of Optimality Theory. IPP constructions have long been problematic for syntactic theory, because a bare infinitive is preferred over the expected past participle. The book shows how the substitution of the past participle by the infinitive in IPP constructions can be captured straightforwardly if constraints are assumed to be violable. The basic idea is that IPP constructions are exceptional because they violate otherwise valid rules of the language. Thus, IPP is a 'last resort' or repair strategy, which is only visible in cases in which the past participle would be 'even worse' . Furthermore, as the choice of Optimality Theory naturally leads to a crosslinguistic account, the book systematically examines and compares infinitival constructions from seven West Germanic languages including Afrikaans, Dutch, German, West Flemish, and three Swiss German dialects.

Contents:

Infinitival Syntax

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of constraints

1. Introduction

1.1 Infinitivus Pro Participio (IPP)

1.2 The West Germanic IPP-languages

1.3 Goals and organisation

2. Infinitive or past participle

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Selection of the verb form: The standard case

2.3 Verb classes and IPP

2.4 IPP-verbs as past participles

2.5 The verb form in the IPP-construction

2.6 Overview of IPP-verbs

2.7 Summary and questions resulting from the data

3. The verb order

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Causatives

3.3 Modals

3.4 Perception verbs

3.5 Benefactives

3.6 Duratives

3.7 Inchoatives

3.8 Control verbs

3.9 Summary from the perspective of the different languages

3.10 Summary from the perspective of the different constructions

3.11 Summary

4. Main features of previous analyses of the IPP

4.1 The status of the IPP: Infinitive or past participle?

4.2 Triggers and accounts of the IPP-construction

4.3 Correlations with respect to IPP

4.4 Summary

5. Introduction to Optimality Theory (OT)

5.1 General introduction

5.2 Last resort

5.3 Fixed hierarchies

6. A case study of German I: Obligatory versus impossible IPP

6.1 The data revisited

6.2 Morphological selection

6.3 Examples of violations of morphological selection

6.4 Speculations on an 'unwanted' configuration: A trigger constraint for non-finite last resort cases

6.5 The form of the repair

6.6 The account of the verb form

6.7 Summary

6.8 Appendix: A reconstruction of the IPP-trigger in terms of harmonic alignment

7. A case study of German II: The verb order

8. Optional IPP in German

8.1 Introduction and overview

8.2 OT-accounts of optionality

8.3 Global ties and neutralization applied to IPP.

8.4 (Dis-)advantages of the two approaches

8.5 Summary

9. Parameterisation in OT: The other languages

9.1 The verb form

9.2 The verb order in 3-verb clusters

9.3 Summary

10. Conclusion

References

Index

The series Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612156502

9781282156500

1282156500

9789027294210

9027294216

OCLC:

191936049