Syntax: Basic Concepts and Applications
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 8/9/2012
EAN 9780521605786, ISBN10: 0521605784
Paperback, 300 pages, 24.7 x 17.4 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Syntax: Basic Concepts and Applications provides a systematic introduction to core topics in syntax, focusing on how the basic concepts apply in the analysis of sentences. Assuming no background in linguistic analysis, the book gives students a working knowledge of syntactic analysis from a minimalist perspective. Step by step it explains the fundamentals of phrase structure, movement and deletion. Well-placed exercises throughout reinforce and extend the concepts and analyses presented in the text, allowing readers to gain understanding of progressively complex issues at a comfortable pace. Much of the data comes from English, but crucial examples are also drawn from a range of other languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Irish, Welsh and Greek.
1. The computational nature of human language
2. Knowledge of language as an object of inquiry
3. Categories and constituents
4. Phrase structure theory
5. The structure of clauses
6. The syntax of Spec-TP
7. Head movement and the structure of root clauses
8. Wh-movement
9. Ellipsis
unpronounced syntax.
Advance praise: 'This is the book I would recommend to anyone who wants to be gently led to know what the new view of human language is all about - and how much one can get out of a tiny English word.' Carlos P. Otero, University of California