Towards an Elegant Syntax (Routledge Leading Linguists)

✍ Scribed by Michael Brody

• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 318
• Edition: annotated edition
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This collection of essays, written between 1980 and 2001, places the search for theoretical elegance at centre stage. The author shows that although the conceptual difference between 'elegance' and the minimalist search for 'perfection' may appear to be subtle, its consequences are in fact wide ranging and radical. These considerations lead to a markedly different and novel theory of syntax where most of the major features of minimalism, such as derivation, economy, merge, move, phrases and projection, are not just reanalysed or shifted to other components but in a majority of cases are dispensed with completely or reduced to much simpler notions.Towards an Elegant Syntax makes available important and some less easily accessible publications with new introductory material.

✦ Table of Contents

BOOK COVER......Page 1
TITLE......Page 4
COPYRIGHT......Page 5
CONTENTS......Page 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 8
INTRODUCTION......Page 10
PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS......Page 14
1 ON CIRCULAR READINGS......Page 16
2 ON CONTEXTUAL DEFINITIONS AND THE ROLE OF CHAINS......Page 26
3 ON THE COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION OF EMPTY CATEGORIES......Page 49
BEYOND PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS......Page 84
4 ON CHOMSKY’S KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE......Page 86
5 A NOTE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GRAMMAR......Page 96
6 THEORY AND ARGUMENTS......Page 102
TOWARDS AN ELEGANT SYNTAX......Page 124
7 PROJECTION AND PHRASE STRUCTURE......Page 126
8 PERFECT CHAINS......Page 159
9 THE MINIMALIST PROGRAM AND A PERFECT SYNTAX......Page 185
10 ON THE STATUS OF REPRESENTATIONS AND DERIVATIONS......Page 194
ASPECTS OF MIRROR THEORY......Page 212
11 MIRROR THEORY......Page 214
12 “ROLL-UP” STRUCTURES AND MORPHOLOGICAL WORDS1......Page 241
13 WORD ORDER, RESTRUCTURING AND MIRROR THEORY......Page 260
NOTES......Page 275
INDEX......Page 310