A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations

A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations
Author: Samuel David Epstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 210
Release: 1998
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019511115X

Exploring the central concept of "syntactic relation", this text argues that certain fundamental relations such as c-command, dominance and checking relations can be explained within a derivational approach to structure-building, resulting in a level-free model of syntax.

A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations

A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations
Author: Samuel David Epstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 1998-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0195354877

This book presents a Minimalist analysis of syntactic relations. The authors argue that certain fundamental relations such as c-command, dominance, and checking relations can be explained within a derivational approach to structure-building couched within a new and controversial level-free model of the syntactic component of the human language faculty.

The Derivation of Anaphoric Relations

The Derivation of Anaphoric Relations
Author: Glyn Hicks
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027255229

The Derivation of Anaphoric Relations resolves a conspicuous problem for Minimalist theory, the apparently representational nature of the binding conditions. Hicks adduces a broad variety of evidence against the binding conditions applying at LF and builds upon the insights of recent proposals by Hornstein, Kayne, and Reuland by reducing them to the core narrow-syntactic operations (specifically, Agree and Merge). Several novel and independently motivated claims about syntactic features and phases are made, not only explaining the previously stipulated roles played by c-command, reference, and locality, but furnishing the dervational binding theory with sufficient flexibility to capture some long-problematic empirical phenomena: These include connectivity effects, 'picture-noun' reflexives in English, and anaphor/pronoun non-complementarity. Specific proposals are also made for extending the derivational approach to accommodate structured crosslinguistic variation in binding, with thorough expositions and analyses of the Dutch, Norwegian, and Icelandic pronominal systems.

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program
Author: Samuel Epstein
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0470754699

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program presents accessible, cutting edge research on an enduring and fundamental question confronting all linguistic inquiry – the respective roles of derivation and representation. Presents accessible, cutting edge research on the respective roles of derivation and representation in syntactic inquiry. Discusses a wide range of phenomena and also includes alternative, representational perspectives. Features papers by M. Brody, C. Collins, S. Epstein, J. Frampton, S. Gutmann, N. Hornstein, R. Kayne, H. Kitahara, J. McCloskey, N. Richards, D. Seely, E. Torrego, J. Uriagereka, C.J.W. Zwart.

Essays in Syntactic Theory

Essays in Syntactic Theory
Author: Samuel David Epstein
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013-06-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134651813

This book makes a vital contribution to substantive and methodological debates in linguistic theory, and should therefore be of interest to any serious scholar of the discipline.

Syntactic Derivations

Syntactic Derivations
Author: Ulf Brosziewski
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2011-05-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110953560

This study investigates a model of syntactic derivations that is based on a new concept of dislocation, i.e., of 'movement' phenomena. Derivations are conceived of as a compositional process that constructs larger syntactic units out of smaller ones without any phrase-structure representations, as in categorial grammars. It is demonstrated that a simple extension of this view can account for dislocation without gap features, chains, or structural transformations. Basically, it is assumed that movement 'splits' a syntactic expression into two parts, which form a derivational unit but enter separately into the formation of larger constituents. The study shows that in this approach, if common assumptions about selection and licensing are added, a small and coherent set of axioms suffices to deduce fundamental syntactic generalizations that transformational theories express in terms of X-bar-Theory and various constraints on movement. These generalizations include, for example, equivalents to the C-Command Condition and the Head Movement Constraint, the 'structure-preserving' nature of dislocation, its 'economical' character, and elementary bounding principles.

Argument Structure and Syntactic Relations

Argument Structure and Syntactic Relations
Author: Maia Duguine
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2010
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027255415

The topic of this collection is argument structure. The fourteen chapters in this book are divided into four parts: Semantic and Syntactic Properties of Event Structure; A Cartographic View on Argument Structure; Syntactic Heads Involved in Argument Structure; and Argument Structure in Language Acquisition. Rigorous theoretical analyses are combined with empirical work on specific aspects of argument structure. The book brings together authors working in different linguistic fields (semantics, syntax, and language acquisition), who explore new findings as well as more established data, but then from new theoretical perspectives. The contributions propose cartographic views of argument structure, as opposed to minimalistic proposals of a binary template model for argument structure, in order to optimally account for various syntactic and semantic facts, as well as data derived from wider cross-linguistic perspectives. "Argument structure plays a central role in the articulation of syntax. Yet whether this contribution is primordial or derivative, derivational or representational, minimalist or cartographic, is entirely up for grabs. This is what makes a book like the present one equivalent to a murder thriller: one cannot finish one chapter without wanting to read the next. While the solution to the underlying mystery remains as open as it ever was, the clues offered here seem just impossible to ignore."

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax

The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax
Author: Marcel den Dikken
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 1412
Release: 2013-07-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107354587

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.

Towards an Elegant Syntax

Towards an Elegant Syntax
Author: Michael Brody
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2005-10-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134423543

This collection of essays, written between 1980 and 2001, places the search for theoretical elegance at centre stage. and makes available important and some less easily accessible publications with new introductory material.