Contrast and Representations in Syntax by Bronwyn M. Bjorkman (English) Hardcove

Publisher Description

This book explores how grammatical oppositions - for instance, the contrast between present and past tense - are represented in the syntax of natural languages. The nature of syntactic contrast is tied to a fundamental question in generative syntactic theory: what is universal in syntax, and what is variable? The chapters in this volume examine the dual role of features, which both define a set of paradigmatic contrasts and act as the building blocks of syntacticstructures and the drivers of syntactic operations. In both of these roles, features are increasingly considered the locus of parametric variation. This identification of parameters with features hasopened up new possibilities for investigating connections between the morphological system of a language and its syntax, and suggests a new role for featural contrast in syntactic theory. The contributors to this volume address these two major questions from a range of perspectives, drawing on data from a variety of typologically diverse languages, including Blackfoot, Greek, Onondaga, and Scottish Gaelic.

Author Biography

Bronwyn M. Bjorkman is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She completed her PhD in Linguistics at MIT in 2011, and prior to arriving at Queen's was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the morphosyntax of tense and aspect, in particular auxiliary verb constructions, as well as on the representation and manipulation of features in syntax. Her work has appeared in journalsincluding Linguistic Inquiry, Glossa, and Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, and in several edited volumes.Daniel Currie Hall is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Program in Linguistics at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Before taking up his current position, he completed a PhD. at the University of Toronto in 2007 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Meertens Instituut in Amsterdam. His research deals with features and contrasts in both phonology and morphosyntax, the latter primarily in a long-standing collaboration with Elizabeth Cowper, and has appeared injournals such as Linguistic Variation, Glossa, Nordlyd, Lingue e linguaggio, and Phonology. He is an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

Table of Contents

1: Bronwyn M. Bjorkman and Daniel Currie Hall: Contrast and representations in syntax: IntroductionPart I: Features in the inflectional spine2: Gabriela Alboiu and Michael Barrie: A feature-geometric approach to verbal inflection in Onondaga3: Andrew Carnie and Sylvia L. R. Schreiner: Restricted and reversed aspectual contrasts4: Elizabeth Ritter: Sentience-based event structure: Evidence from BlackfootPart II: Contrast in the argument domain5: Maria Kyriakaki: Definite expression and degrees of definiteness6: Martha McGinnis: Cross-linguistic contrasts in the structure of causatives in clausal nominalizations7: Leslie Saxon: The Tlicho syntactic causative and non-nominal CPsPart III: Architectural questions8: Carson T. Schütze: Against some approaches to long-distance agreement without AGREE9: Daniel Currie Hall: Contrast in syntax and contrast in phonology: Same difference?

Long Description

This book explores how grammatical oppositions - for instance, the contrast between present and past tense - are represented in the syntax of natural languages. The nature of syntactic contrast is tied to a fundamental question in generative syntactic theory: what is universal in syntax, and what is variable? The chapters in this volume examine the dual role of features, which both define a set of paradigmatic contrasts and act as the building blocks of syntacticstructures and the drivers of syntactic operations. In both of these roles, features are increasingly considered the locus of parametric variation. This identification of parameters with features has opened up new possibilities for investigating connections between the morphological system of a languageand its syntax, and suggests a new role for featural contrast in syntactic theory. The contributors to this volume address these two major questions from a range of perspectives, drawing on data from a variety of typologically diverse languages, including Blackfoot, Greek, Onondaga, and Scottish Gaelic.

Feature

Provides a detailed account of the treatment of features in syntaxDemonstrates how current developments in theoretical linguistics relate to specific languagesDraws on data from a range of languages, including several indigenous languages of North America

New Feature

1. Contrast and representations in syntax: Introduction, Bronwyn M. Bjorkman and Daniel Currie Hall Part I: Features in the inflectional spine 2. A feature-geometric approach to verbal inflection in Onondaga, Gabriela Alboiu and Michael Barrie 3. Restricted and reversed aspectual contrasts, Andrew Carnie and Sylvia L. R. Schreiner 4. Sentience-based event structure: Evidence from Blackfoot, Elizabeth Ritter Part II: Contrast in the argument domain 5. Definite expression and degrees of definiteness, Maria Kyriakaki 6. Cross-linguistic contrasts in the structure of causatives in clausal nominalizations, Martha McGinnis 7. The Tlicho syntactic causative and non-nominal CPs, Leslie Saxon Part III: Architectural questions 8. Against some approaches to long-distance agreement without AGREE, Carson T. Schtze 9. Contrast in syntax and contrast in phonology: Same difference?, Daniel Currie Hall

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