Rich Descriptions and Simple Explanations in Morphosyntax and Language Acquisition

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-0-19-888947-2
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 480 Seiten, Format (B × H): 170 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 862 g

This volume offers new perspectives on the tension between the rich patterns of language variation that emerge from comparative studies and the quest for simple theoretical primitives. The chapters explore the debate between Cartography and Minimalism: on the one hand, the need for detailed and articulated descriptions of the clausal architecture, and on the other, the endeavor to reduce the theoretical apparatus to fundamental computational mechanisms.

The first part of the book begins with a reflection on the goals of modern linguistic theory, and investigates the principles of human language, in an effort to subsume the regularities of particular grammars under a small set of morphosyntactic and semantic primitives. The second part examines the clausal structure - both the CP-layer and the IP-layer - from a comparative perspective, which directly relates to the fundamental questions of universality, linguistic variation, and learnability addressed in the first part of the book. With chapters written by world-leading linguists who analyze a wide range of old and new phenomena, the volume will be a valuable resource for researchers and students interested in theoretical linguistics and language development.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bocci, Giuliano

Botteri, Daniele

Manetti, Claudia

Moscati, Vincenzo

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Spracherwerb, Sprachentwicklung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction

- Part I. Foundational issues: Principles, primitives, and explanations in generative grammar

- 1: Noam Chomsky: Genuine explanation

- 2: Gennaro Chierchia: Four types of quantifiers at the interface between syntax and logic

- 3: Giorgio Graffi and Alessandro Riolfi: The explanatory power of the subjacency principle

- 4: Ian Roberts: The Strict Cycle Condition: 'One cycle to rule them all'

- 5: Richard S. Kayne: A more demanding approach to suppletion

- 6: Adriana Belletti: Truncation vs reduction in development

- Part II. Comparative perspectives on the functional structure of the clause

- 7: M. Rita Manzini and Anna Roussou: Recategorizing C

- 8: Mamoru Saito: Wh-phrases as genuine focus operators

- 9: Dominique Sportiche: Some (but not all) movement types systematically violate islands

- 10: Ronit Szterman and Naama Friedmann: Comprehension and production of sentences with V-C movement in orally-trained children with hearing impairment

- 11: Benedetta Baldi and Leonardo M. Savoia: Micro-variation in imperatives: Enclisis and mesoclisis in Italian and Arbëresh varieties

- 12: Paola Benincà and Guglielmo Cinque: The syntax of Romance clitics and selective clitic climbing

- 13: Andrea Calabrese: The Latin passive morpheme /-r/ and its morphosyntactic similarity with Romance SI

- 14: Liliane Haegeman and Lieven Danckaert: Subject ellipsis and impersonal pronouns

- 15: Hilda Koopman: Some basic properties of Mandarin resultative clusters: A measure of progress

- 16: Ur Shlonsky: From Bantu subject-object reversal to inverted copular sentences: How “low” focalization and smuggling circumvent Relative Minimality violations

Über Autor(innen)

Giuliano Bocci is Associate Professor in General Linguistics at the University of Siena. His theoretical and experimental research focuses on formal syntax, prosody, and their interplay with information structure.

Daniele Botteri is Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at the University of Siena where he earned his PhD in Cognitive Science in 2018. His research focuses on comparative syntax, language learning, and language teaching methodology.

Claudia Manetti was Adjunct Professor of Linguistics and a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Siena until 2020, and is currently a secondary school teacher. Her research interests mainly focus on language acquisition, multilingualism, and language teaching.

Vincenzo Moscati is Associate Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics at the University of Siena. He works in theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics, looking at language processing in adults, typically developing children, and children with Developmental Language Disorder.