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.
Case, Scope, and Binding investigates the relation between syntax and semantics within a framework which combines the syntactic Government-Binding theory with a novel cross-linguistic theory of case and semantics. It is argued that case assignment, agreement, syntactic binding relations, as well as the minimum scopes of operators, are all determined by the relations which hold at the level of s-structure. Cross-linguistic variation with respect to these phenomena is due to corresponding variations at the s-structure level. The minimum scope of an operator cannot exceed its c-command domain at s-structure, but may be reduced by certain semantic mechanisms. The availability of any wider scope option depends on the possibility of movement at LF. The proposed theory is tested in detail against the facts of Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut family), an ergative language with typologically unusual scope and binding relations. For linguists and philosophers interested in syntax, semantics, or the syntax-semantics interface.
The major aim of this volume is to investigate infinitival structures from a diachronic point of view and, simultaneously, to embed the diachronic findings into the ongoing theoretical discussion on non-finite clauses in general. All contributions subscribe to a dynamic approach to infinitival clauses by investigating their origin, development and loss in miscellaneous patterns and across different languages.
The book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of morphology, syntax, computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP). It provides a critical and practical guide to computational techniques for handling morphological and syntactic phenomena, showing how these techniques have been used and modified in practice. The authors discuss the nature and uses of syntactic parsers and examine the problems and opportunities of parsing algorithms for finite-state, context-free and various context-sensitive grammars. They relate approaches for describing syntax and morphology to formal mechanisms and algorithms, and present well-motivated approaches for augmenting grammars with weights or probabilities.
An invaluable reference tool for students and researchers in theoretical linguistics, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition has been updated to incorporate the last 10 years of syntactic research and expanded to include a wider array of important case studies in the syntax of a broad array of languages. A revised and expanded edition of this invaluable reference tool for students and researchers in linguistics, now incorporating the last 10 years of syntactic research Contains over 120 chapters that explain, analyze, and contextualize important empirical studies within syntax over the last 50 years Charts the development and historiography of syntactic theory with coverage of the most important subdomains of syntax Brings together cutting-edge contributions from a global group of linguists under the editorship of two esteemed syntacticians Provides an essential and unparalleled collection of research within the field of syntax, available both online and across 8 print volumes This work is also available as an online resource at www.companiontosyntax.com
The field of morphology is particularly heterogeneous. Investigators differ on key points at every level of theory. These divisions are not minor issues about technical implementation, but rather are foundational issues that mold the underlying anatomy of any theory. The field has developed very rapidly both theoretically and methodologically, giving rise to many competing theories and varied hypotheses. Many drastically different and often contradictory models and foundational hypotheses have been proposed. Theories diverge with respect to everything from foundational architectural assumptions to the specific combinatorial mechanisms used to derive complex words. Today these distinct models of word-formation largely exist in parallel, mostly without proponents confronting or discussing these differences in any major forum. After forty years of fast-paced growth in the field, morphologists are in need of a moment to take a breath and survey the drastically different points of view within the field. This volume provides such a moment.
