Focusing on the relation between functional categories and lexical and phrasal categories in Arabic dialects, Benmamoun proposes that universally functional categories are specified for categorial features which determine their relation with lexical categories. Language variation is attributed to differences with respect to the categorial feature specifications of functional categories and how they interact with lexical categories. The book brings new insights to issues related to the syntax of functional categories, the relation between syntax and the morpho-phonological component, and comparative syntax.
This book develops ideas of Minimalist syntax to derive functional categories from the partially-ordered features expressed by functional elements, thereby dispensing with functional categories as primitives of the theory. It generalizes attempts to do this in the literature, while drawing significant empirical consequences from general constraints formulated to block overgeneration. The resulting theory of the construction of functional categories is applied to various problems in syntactic analysis and comparative and historical syntax, including variation across Germanic languages in patterns of verb-second and in the occurrence of expletive subjects in existential constructions, verb positions in Old and Middle English, problems regarding the placement of clitic pronouns in Romance languages and Modern Greek, and some previously unexamined structures of reduced clause coordination in colloquial English. Facts from early stages of the acquisition of syntax are shown to follow from the mechanisms for the projection of functional features as functional categories, exercised before all of the features for a language, along with their ordering and feature co-occurrence restrictions, have been acquired. It is observed that child acquisition of functional elements exhibits successive developmental stages, each characterized by the number of clausal functional elements which can be represented together within a clause. This, and facts regarding the lag in development of functional categories by children with specific language impairment, are shown to be not entirely reducible to limitations in working memory or processing capacity, but to depend in part on the growth of representational resources for the projection of functional categories.
Recent research on the syntax of signed language has revealed that, apart from some modality-specific differences, signed languages are organized according to the same underlying principles as spoken languages. This book addresses the organization and distribution of functional categories in American Sign Language (ASL), focusing on tense, agreement and wh-constructions.
In recent years, word order has come to be seen, within a Government Binding/Minimalist framework, as determined by functional as well as lexical categories. Within this framework, functional categories are often seen as present in every language without evidence being available in that language. This book contains arguments that even though Universal Grammar makes functional categories available, the language learner must decide whether or not to incorporate them in his or her grammar. For instance, it is shown that English has one (not two as often assumed) functional category between the complementizer and the Negation, but that languages such as Dutch, Swedish, German and Old and Middle English have none. The title of the book can be seen in terms of the direction current research is taking; it can also be seen in terms of the changes that have taken place in English.
This study discusses functional categories in Igbo within Noam Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (MP). Chapter 1 includes the introduction of the concept of functional categories and why they take central place in the study of syntax, as well as an overview of the Minimalist Program (MP). Chapter 2 discusses some historical antecedents to MP. It further discusses the economy principles of the MP as well as the place of functional categories within the overall conceptions of the MP model. Chapter 3 discusses five functional categories: Agreement, Tense, Aspect, Negation and Determiner. In chapter 4, the Igbo functional categories within the verbal domain: Tense, Aspect and Negation are discussed. Chapter 5 is an application of the theoretical issues raised in Chapter 2 to the analysis of the functional categories discussed in Chapter 3. One interesting issue discussed in Chapter 5 is the role of tone in realising some of the functional categories in Igbo. Chapter 6 discusses the functional categories within the nominal domain with much emphasis on the determiner. A revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis, some of the conclusions are revolutionary, relevant to debates in the linguistic theory and in Igbo studies in particular, as well as serving as an introduction to MP.
To paraphrase, of the making of syntactic categories there is no end. For any theory of syntax, questions arise about its classificatory scheme: what are the categories? What properties do they have? How do they relate to each other? Eleven essays address these questions by inquiring whether there is a clear distinction between lexical and functional categories, how syntactic categories relate to semantic categories, the relation between syntactic and morphological information, as well as other inquiries. Above all the essays highlight the centrality of questions about syntactic categories for a number of different theoretical frameworks. It discusses a broad range of questions about syntactic categories and presents a number of theoretical frameworks.
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.
This book offers a systematic account of syntactic categories - the building blocks of sentences and the units of grammatical analysis, and explains their description in different formal as well as functional theories of language, including language typology. Its clear and balanced exposition will be widely welcomed by students.
This study investigates the acquisition of Functional Categories (e.g., INFL (AGR, TNS), DET, COMP) from the perspective of self-organization in generative grammar. Language is conceived of as a dynamical system which evolves in time and bifurcates when critical thresholds are reached. The emergence of syntax as evidenced by the acquisition of Functional Categories is the major bifurcation in child language acquisition. Target values of syntactic parameters are attractors which children approach on individual trajectories. A proposed tripartite scenario of change - from a simple stable state A, via symmetry-breaking in a liminal phase B characterized by variation, to a new complex stable state C - accounts for the dynamics in early grammatical development. Traditional generative issues, such as the acquisition of case-marking, finiteness, V2, and wh-questions, are discussed as well as new issues, such as functional neologisms, and sentential blends. Dynamical notions like precursor, oscillation, symmetry-breaking, and trigger are important explanatory tools. The growing child phrase marker is a fractal mental object which represents syntactic information by way of self-similar extended projections. The book addresses researchers in language acquisition from various theoretical camps: generative, functional, connectionist, by giving new answers to old questions in the light of a novel challenging theory: self-organization.
