Discovering syntax : clause structures of english, german, and romance / by Joseph E. Emonds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Emonds, Joseph E.

Series:

Studies in generative grammar ; 93.

Studies in generative grammar ; 93

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Languages, Modern--Syntax.

Languages, Modern.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 393 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Mouton de Gruyter, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The essays in this volume, dating from 1991 onwards, focus on highly characteristic constructions of English, Romance languages, and German. Among clause-internal structures, the most puzzling are English double objects, particle constructions, and non-finite complementation (infinitives, participles and gerunds). Separate chapters in Part I offer relatively complete analyses of each. These analyses are integrated into the framework of Emonds (2000), wherein a simplified subcategorization theory fully expresses complement selection. Principal results of that framework constitute the initial essay of Part I. areas. The self-contained essays can all be read separately. They are rich in empirical documentation, and yet in all of them, solutions are constructed around a coherent, relatively simple theoretical core. In Romance languages, classic generative debates have singled out clitic and causative constructions as the most challenging. Separate essays in Part II lay out the often complex paradigms and propose detailed syntactic solutions, simple in their overall architecture yet rich in detailed predictions. Concerning movements to clausal edges, especially controversial topics include passives, English parasitic gaps, and the nature of verb-second systems exemplified by German.. The essays in Part III each use rather surprising but still theoretically constrained structural accounts to solve thorny problems in all three.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Prologue to Discovering Syntax

Part I: Structures in lexical projections

Chapter 1. Types of syntactic categories and features

Chapter 2. The restricted complement space of lexical frames

Chapter 3. The autonomy of the (syntactic) lexicon and syntax: Insertion conditions for derivational and inflectional morphemes

Chapter 4. Secondary predication, stationary particles, and silent prepositions

Chapter 5. Projecting indirect objects

Part II: Minimal structures for functional categories

Chapter 6. The flat structure economy of semi-lexical heads

Chapter 7. How clitics license null phrases: A theory of the lexical interface

Chapter 8. English indirect passives

Part III: Landing sites of phrasal movements

Chapter 9. A theory of phrase structure based on Extended Projections

Chapter 10. The lower operator position with parasitic gaps

Chapter 11. Unspecified categories as the key to root constructions

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-393).

ISBN:

9786612196881

9781282196889

128219688X

9783110207521

3110207524

OCLC:

437233354