First Published in 1997. The present study examines the relation between two types of structural Case on the one hand, and the interpretation of NPs on the other. The author argues that there are two types of structural Case, to wit weak D-structural and strong S-structural Case. The hypothesis that links these two types of Case to different interpretations states that an object is interpreted as a generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. This title particularly considers the semantics of noun phrases and the weak-strong distinction.

This book examines the syntax of direct object noun phrases in English within the Principles and Parameters, specifically Chomsky's Minimalist Program, approach to generative grammar. The main focus is on the phrase structural positions of object noun phrases at the various levels of representation, and secondarily on the relationship between structural position and semantic interpretation. Supported by a variety of empirical and conceptual arguments, the central claim of the book is that direct object noun phrases in English surface in a VP-external position; a secondary claim is that while in the overt syntax direct objects appear VP-externally, their position at the level of logical form varies depending on interpretation. Four basic constructions are studied: simple transitive clauses, transitive clauses with prepositional objects, the "raising to object" construction, and the "double object" construction. This book will be of interest to scholars in the areas of phrase structure syntax, English and Germanic syntax, the syntax-semantics interface, and all areas of generative approaches to syntax.

This collective volume on nominal expressions in Basque, a language isolate with no known relatives, comprises original papers on the syntactic structure and the interpretation of both Noun Phrases and nominalization constructions – a traditionally neglected aspect of Basque linguistics. The minute attention to properties and paradigms previously overlooked, and the analyses of them in the light of recent advances in syntactic theory make this book a valuable tool for syntacticians, semanticists and morphologists. This work fills a gap in the theoretical study of Basque, and the richness of data presented makes it interesting for any researcher from whatever particular theoretical persuasion. This volume is especially useful for researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students of comparative grammar, typology, and theoretical linguistics.

This book is a theoretically oriented, comparative study of noun phrases and their semantic and morpho-syntactic properties. This is the first study that provides a comprehensive analysis of the nominal structure in Uzbek, and compares it with corresponding structures in other article and article-less languages. Uzbek nominals represent a fertile ground to test the universality of the DP hypothesis and to make an insightful contribution to an ongoing debate about the functional architecture of the nominal domain in languages with and without articles. The study shows that the ordering of various nominal suffixes in Uzbek reflects a rich functional structure, involving not only DP but also KP. The work also discusses elements such as determiners, demonstratives, quantifiers and adjectives, and positioning of these elements within the nominal domain. This study is especially useful for researchers interested in theoretical linguistics, comparative syntax and typology.

This volume provides a guide to what we know about the interplay between prosody-stress, phrasing, and melody-and interpretation-felicity in discourse, inferences, and emphasis. Speakers can modulate the meaning and effects of their utterances by changing the location of stress or of pauses, and by choosing the melody of their sentences. Although these factors often do not change the literal meaning of what is said, linguists have in recent years found tools and models to describe these more elusive aspects of linguistic meaning. This volume provides a guide to what we know about the interplay between prosody-stress, phrasing, and melody-and interpretation-felicity in discourse, inferences, and emphasis. Daniel Büring presents the main phenomena involved, and introduces the details of current formal analyses of prosodic structure, relevant aspects of discourse structure, intonational meaning, and, most importantly, the relations between them. He explains and compares the most influential theories in these areas, and outlines the questions that remain open for future research. This wide-ranging book involves aspects of phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and will be of interest to researchers and students in all of these fields, from advanced undergraduate level upwards.

Explore the exciting research where semantics meets morphology, syntax and pragmatics. In this book, leading researchers use in-depth articles to explain a wide range of topics at these interfaces, including the semantics of intonation, inflection, compounding, argument structure, type shifting, compositionality, implicature, context dependence, deixis and presupposition. Now in paperback for the first time since its original publication, the highly cited material in this book is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in semantics where it crosses over with other dimensions of grammar.

This monograph investigates the morpho-syntactic and other properties of clitic pronouns in Greek and offers a grammar of proclisis and enclisis in light of Chomsky s (1995, 2001a, 2005) Minimalist Program. It explores the nature of clitics as syntactic topicalizers which are probed by structurally higher verbal heads to which they move and into which they incorporate morpho-syntactically. A theory is advanced according to which cliticization derives from syntactic agreement between (the phi-features of) a clitic pronoun and a phase head, v* in the case of proclisis and CM in the case of enclisis. Incorporation of the clitic into its host is argued to depend on two factors, i.e. the fact that the clitic only contains a subset of the features of its host, and the fact that the edge of the host is accessible. Also, the syntax of strong pronouns and their relation to clitics, of negated imperatives, of surrogate imperatives and of free clitic ordering in Greek enclisis are also discussed. This monograph would appeal to syntacticians and morphologists as well as to those interested in Greek and more generally in clitic syntax."

The goal of this book is twofold. On the one hand we want to offer a discussion of some of the more important properties of the nominal projection, on the other hand we want to provide the reader with tools for syntactic analysis which apply to the structure of DP but which are also relevant for other domains of syntax. In order to achieve this dual goal we will discuss phenomena which are related to the nominal projection in relation to other syntactic phenomena (e.g. pro drop will be related to N-ellipsis, the classification of pronouns will be applied to the syntax of possessive pronouns, N-movement will be compared to V-movement, the syntax of the genitive construction will be related to that of predicate inversion etc.). In the various chapters we will show how recent theoretical proposals (distributed morphology, anti-symmetry, checking theory) can cast light on aspects of the syntax of the NP. When necessary, we will provide a brief introduction of these theoretical proposals. We will also indicate problems with these analyses, whether they be inherent to the theories as such (e.g. what is the trigger for movement in antisymmetric approaches) or to the particular instantiations. The book cannot and will not provide the definitive analysis of the syntax of noun phrases. We consider that this would not be possible, given the current flux in generative syntax, with many new theoretical proposals being developed and explored, but the book aims at giving the reader the tools with which to conduct research and to evaluate proposals in the literature. In the discussion of various issues, we will apply the framework that is most adequate to deal with problems at hand. We will therefore not necessarily use the same approach throughout the discussion. Though proposals in the literature will be referred to when relevant, we cannot attempt to provide a critical survey of the literature. We feel that such a survey would be guided too strongly by theoretical choices, which would not be compatible with the pedagogical purposes this book has. The book is comparative in its approach, and data from different languages will be examined, including English, German, Dutch (West-Flemish), Greek, Romance, Semitic, Slavic, Albanian, Hungarian, Gungbe.