This volume offers a novel perspective in the syntax of articles in European languages arguing that articles do not directly and biunivocally realize semantic definiteness. The first two chapters provide an accessible introduction to the latest developments of generative syntax, namely the cartographic and minimalist approaches, by focusing on the “imperfect” parallels between clauses and nominal expressions. The third chapter argues that feature sharing is not the result of a unique syntactic process but rather the consequence of Merge: external Merge, which is triggered by Selection and Modification, and internal Merge, which is due to the recursive nature of language. It argues for three different ways of transferring features: Agreement allows for an argument (an independent phase, selected by a head) to reenter the computation as part of the predicate of the new phase. It targets Person features and is not involved in the feature sharing triggered by modification. Concord copies the features of N (notably gender, number and case, where this is present) and is the result of Modification and can coexist with Agreement. Finally, Projection is triggered by multiple internal merger of the head, bundled with all its interpretable and uninterpretable features, which may be realized in different segments. Chapter 4 focuses on the nature of determiners such as articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, possessive adjectives and pronouns, personal pronouns and proper names, and shows that only articles have the properties to be attributed to “functional heads” because they are a segment of a scattered nominal head. The rest of the volume is devoted to analysing syntactic phenomena, such as double definiteness, expletive articles, and weak and strong adjectival inflection, by means of the proposal that (scattered) nominal or adjectival heads concord with their modifiers. This proposal reinterprets head movement in a fashion that makes it compatible with minimalist requirements, provides an explanation for apparent optionality of head movement, eliminates the typology of head movements by adjunction or substitution, and gives an original answer to the doubts raised about the legitimacy of the very notion of “functional category”. Reviews: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-8024-4

Il volume ha ricevuto due endorsement (Nigel Vincent, emeritus, University of Manchester; Alexandra Cornilescu, emerita, University of Bucharest); una recensione nel sito Joseph W Windsor University of Calgary Linguist list, http://www.cambridgescholars.com/productreviews/60893 tre recensioni in rivista (Alexandra Rehn, University of Konstanz, in Studia Linguistica 2-s2.0-85055991763; Ana Maria Brito, University of Porto, in Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/EL/article/view/3438; Alexandru Nicolae, University of Bucharest, to appear in Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 2017(3) https://www.lingv.ro/images/RRL 4 2017 09-Recenzii.pdf

Nominal Syntax at the interfaces. A comparative study of languages with articles

GIUSTI, Giuliana
2015-01-01

Abstract

This volume offers a novel perspective in the syntax of articles in European languages arguing that articles do not directly and biunivocally realize semantic definiteness. The first two chapters provide an accessible introduction to the latest developments of generative syntax, namely the cartographic and minimalist approaches, by focusing on the “imperfect” parallels between clauses and nominal expressions. The third chapter argues that feature sharing is not the result of a unique syntactic process but rather the consequence of Merge: external Merge, which is triggered by Selection and Modification, and internal Merge, which is due to the recursive nature of language. It argues for three different ways of transferring features: Agreement allows for an argument (an independent phase, selected by a head) to reenter the computation as part of the predicate of the new phase. It targets Person features and is not involved in the feature sharing triggered by modification. Concord copies the features of N (notably gender, number and case, where this is present) and is the result of Modification and can coexist with Agreement. Finally, Projection is triggered by multiple internal merger of the head, bundled with all its interpretable and uninterpretable features, which may be realized in different segments. Chapter 4 focuses on the nature of determiners such as articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, possessive adjectives and pronouns, personal pronouns and proper names, and shows that only articles have the properties to be attributed to “functional heads” because they are a segment of a scattered nominal head. The rest of the volume is devoted to analysing syntactic phenomena, such as double definiteness, expletive articles, and weak and strong adjectival inflection, by means of the proposal that (scattered) nominal or adjectival heads concord with their modifiers. This proposal reinterprets head movement in a fashion that makes it compatible with minimalist requirements, provides an explanation for apparent optionality of head movement, eliminates the typology of head movements by adjunction or substitution, and gives an original answer to the doubts raised about the legitimacy of the very notion of “functional category”. Reviews: https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-8024-4
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/3661215
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