Ellipsis
Ellipsis

Author: Anne Lobeck

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1995-06-22

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0195357930

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This book elaborates a theory of ellipsis that sheds new light on a well-known phenomenon, bringing it under the aegis of general and universal principles. Lobeck argues that ellipted categories in IP (VP Ellipsis), DP (N' Ellipsis), and CP (Sluicing) are empty, non-referential pronominals, subject to the same licensing and identification conditions as referential pro. She proposes that both types of empty pronominals must be licensed under head-government to satisfy the Empty Category Principle, and identified through strong agreement. In the case of ellipsis, agreement-type features make the empty category visible to interpretive processes of reconstruction. These licensing and identification conditions derive the result that ellipses are complements of functional categories DET, COMP, and INFL, but not of lexical categories. The analysis is supported by contrastive evidence from ellipsis in French and German, in which licensing and identification interact with Verb Raising, feature checking, and a parameter defining "strong" agreement.

The Structure of CP and IP
The Structure of CP and IP

Author: Luigi Rizzi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-06-17

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0195159497

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The purpose of this edited volume is to study the structure of the inflectional field and the left peripheral field of clauses, often described as the systems of IP (Inflection Phrase) and CP (Complementizer Phrase).

Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition
Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition

Author: Acrisio Pires

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009-06-23

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 3110215357

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This volume brings together chapters written by specialists in North America, Europe and Brazil. It includes original research about the acquisition (L1, bilingualism) and acquisition/ learning (L2 or L3) of dialects of Brazilian and European Portuguese. In an effort to maximize volume cohesion, the emphasis has been on contributions that present studies exploring both empirical/experimental and theoretical aspects of the acquisition of syntax, and its interfaces with morphology, with semantics/pragmatics, and with language change. Within the generative paradigm alone there are various volumes on the acquisition of other languages, but there are no volumes currently in print focusing on the acquisition of Portuguese. We believe that it is time for such a volume, considering among other factors that Portuguese is the second most widely spoken Romance language (second only to Spanish), and the seventh most widely spoken language in the world. In addition, the significant changes that have taken place between Brazilian and European Portuguese especially since the 19th century make the inquiry into the acquisition of the different dialects a source for very productive insights about the connections between linguistic theory, language acquisition and language change. Finally, having a collection of high quality articles in one place pays homage to the importance for linguistic research of investigations into the acquisition of the Portuguese language.

On the Syntax of Missing Objects
On the Syntax of Missing Objects

Author: Marta Ruda

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2017-11-15

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 902726483X

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Focusing on objects, this book aims at contributing to the on-going inquiry into modelling structures with missing arguments. In addition to offering detailed discussion and analyses of a unique combination of three very different systems (English, Polish, and Hungarian), a larger goal here is to provide a framework for deriving cross-linguistic and intra-linguistic variation in the domain of object drop. Variation of this type is hypothesised to follow, first and foremost, from the association of heads in the extended nominal projection with phonemic features and from the system of interpretation of nominal expressions in a language. The book will be of interest to both theoretically- and descriptively-oriented researchers, since, even though its focus is theoretical, a detailed discussion of the empirical facts, including some novel findings drawn from corpus studies and grammaticality judgements, is also offered.

The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis
The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis

Author: Jeroen van Craenenbroeck

Publisher: Oxford Handbooks

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 1147

ISBN-13: 0198712391

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This handbook is the first volume to provide a comprehensive, in-depth, and balanced discussion of ellipsis, a phenomena whereby expressions in natural language appear to be incomplete but are still understood. It explores fundamental questions about the workings of grammar and provides detailed case studies of inter- and intralinguistic variation.

Contrastive Analysis of Chinese and English Syntax
Contrastive Analysis of Chinese and English Syntax

Author: Ruixi Ressy Ai

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2024-02-27

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1036400077

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This book introduces a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English syntax based on generative grammar. It covers major syntactic domains, including but not limited to noun phrases, verb phrases, the inflectional domain, the discourse-related domain and ellipsis. Based on the empirical data drawn from both Chinese and English, and recast in modern linguistic terminology, the book introduces various rules and theoretical modules from the generative framework to analyze the similarities and differences between Chinese and English syntax. The chapters are arranged such that the book moves from the easiest syntactic topics gradually towards the more complex and advanced ones. Each chapter includes a short summary of major points and references for further reading. Readers are not required to have background knowledge in syntax. The book can serve as a textbook or a reference book for scholars of Chinese studies, Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL), Chinese linguistics, comparative linguistics and theoretical linguistics.

Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax
Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax

Author: Andreas Dufter

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-09-25

Total Pages: 978

ISBN-13: 311037708X

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This volume offers theoretically informed surveys of topics that have figured prominently in morphosyntactic and syntactic research into Romance languages and dialects. We define syntax as being the linguistic component that assembles linguistic units, such as roots or functional morphemes, into grammatical sentences, and morphosyntax as being an umbrella term for all morphological relations between these linguistic units, which either trigger morphological marking (e.g. explicit case morphemes) or are related to ordering issues (e.g. subjects precede finite verbs whenever there is number agreement between them). All 24 chapters adopt a comparative perspective on these two fields of research, highlighting cross-linguistic grammatical similarities and differences within the Romance language family. In addition, many chapters address issues related to variation observable within individual Romance languages, and grammatical change from Latin to Romance.

Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation
Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation

Author: Montserrat Batllori

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2005-08-11

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0191534064

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In this outstanding collection of new work the methods and theories of formal syntax are focussed on grammatical variation and change. The editors open the volume with an extensive and accessible introduction to the ideas and techniques deployed in the book and the phenomena and issues on which they are brought to bear. Seventeen chapters follow, divided into two parts, the first concerned with grammaticalization and the second with parametric variation. These show what the application of contemporary theories of syntax and language variation can reveal about syntactic change and variation and the processes of parametric change which lie behind them. They also demonstrate the value of testing and constructing synchronic theories on the basis of historical data. The analyses range over many languages and language families, including Germanic, Romance, Greek, and Chinese. This book will interest scholars and students of grammatical change and theory at graduate level and above.