ABOUT THIS BOOK

Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data.

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Raffaella Zanuttini is an associate professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. She is the author of Negation and Clausal Structure and coeditor of Paths Towards Universal Grammar.

Héctor Campos is an associate professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University. He is the author of De la Oracion Simple a la Oracion compuesta and coeditor of Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory.

Elena Herburger is an associate professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University. She is the author of What Counts.

Paul H. Portner is an associate professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. He is the author of What Is Meaning? and a coeditor of Formal Semantics and the second edition of the Handbook of Semantics.

REVIEWS

This collection, coming from highly distinguished international specialists, is extremely important for all specialists in syntax and semantics. Reference is to many languages, all explored using sophisticated theoretical methods: as much as anything, we have here impressive confirmation of how significant theoretical linguistics may be for the analysis of the richness of human language and the analysis of complex data.

-- Forum for Modern Language Studies

"This collection's many outstanding contributions make it a volume that syntacticians and semanticists will want to study carefully."

-- Richard S. Kayne, professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Three Benchmarks for Distributional Approaches to Natural Language SyntaxColin Phillips

PART I: CLAUSAL ARCHITECTURE

2. Argument Fronting in English, Romance CLLD, and the Left PeripheryLiliane Haegeman

3. A Detailed Map of the Left Periphery of Medieval RomancePaola Benincà

4. Questions and Questioning in a Local EnglishJames McCloskey

5. VP-, D- Movement LanguagesLisa deMena Travis

PART II: NEGATION

6. Parasitism, Secondary Triggering, and Depth of EmbeddingMarcel den Dikken

7. Light Negation and PolarityBernhard Schwarz and Rajesh Bhatt

8. Marking and Interpretation of Negation: A Bidirectional Optimality Theory ApproachHenriëtte de Swart

PART III: TENSE AND ASPECT

9. Cohesion in Temporal Context: Aspectual Adverbs as Dynamic Indexicals
Alice G. B. ter Meulen

10. Tense, Adverbials and QuantificationToshiyuki Ogihara