Syntax on the Edge

A Graph-Theoretic Analysis of Sentence Structure
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-90-04-54142-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 21, 494 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 699 g

Reihe: Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory

What is the most descriptively and explanatorily adequate format for syntactic structures and how are they constrained? Different theories of syntax have provided various answers: sets, feature structures, tree diagrams… Building on formal and empirical insights from a wide variety of approaches spanning more than 70 years (including Transformational Grammar, Relational Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, and Tree Adjoining Grammar), this monograph develops a new, mathematically grounded, framework in which objects known as graphs, and the constraints that follow from them, are argued to provide the best characterisation of the system of expressions and relations that make up natural language grammars. This new approach is motivated and exemplified via detailed and formally explicit analyses of major syntactic phenomena in English and Spanish.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Krivochen, Diego Gabriel

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Figures

Abbreviations

1 Introduction: Setting the Scene

1.1 Methodological and Historical Context

1.2 Transformations and the Preservation of Relations

1.3 Declarative vs. Procedural Syntax

1.4 On Graphs and Phrase Markers: First- and Second-Order Conditions on Structural Representations

1.5 Structural Uniformity (and Two Ways to Fix It)

1.6 You Only Have One Mother

2 Fundamentals of Graph-Theoretic Syntax

2.1 Defining (L-)Graphs

2.2 Syntactic Composition and Semantic Interpretation

2.3 Adjacency Matrices and Arcs: More on Allowed Relations

3 A Proof of Concept: Discontinuous Constituents

4 Some Inter-Theoretical Comparisons

4.1 Multiple-Gap Relative Constructions

4.2 Dependencies and Rootedness

4.3 Crossing Dependencies

5 Ordered Relations and Grammatical Functions

5.1 A Categorial Excursus on Unaccusatives and Expletives

6 Towards an Analysis of English Predicate Complement Constructions

6.1 Raising to Subject

6.2 Raising to Object

6.3 Object-Controlled Equi

6.4 Subject-Controlled Equi

6.5 A Note on Raising and Polarity: ‘Opacity’ Revisited

7 More on Cross-Arboreal Relations: Parentheticals and Clitic Climbing in Spanish

7.1 Discontinuity and Clitic Climbing in Spanish Auxiliary Chains

8 On Unexpected Binding Effects: a Graph-Theoretic Approach to Binding Theory

8.1 Grafts and Graphs

9 Complementation within the NP

10 Wh-Interrogatives: Aspects of Syntax and Semantics

10.1 Simple Wh-Questions

11 MIG s and Prizes

12 The Structural Heterogeneity of Coordinations

13 A Small Collection of Transformations

13.1 Passivisation

13.2 Dative Shift

13.3 Transformations vs. Alternations

14 Some Open Problems and Questions

14.1 A Note on Leftward and Rightward Extractions

14.2 Deletion without Deletion

14.3 Long Distance Dependencies and Resumptive Pronouns

14.4 Identity Issues in Local Reflexive Anaphora

14.5 Ghost in the Graph

14.6 A Derivational Alternative?

14.7 Future Prospects

15 Concluding Remarks

Appendix: Some Notes on (Other) Graph-Based Approaches

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Diego Gabriel Krivochen, Ph.D. (2018), University of Reading, is currently a Lecturer in Syntax at the University of Oxford. He has published on theoretical syntax, English and Spanish grammar, and implicit learning of artificial grammars.