Books in the Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax series

The cartographic project considers evidence for a functional head in one language as evidence for it in universal grammar. In this volume, some of the most influential linguists who have participated in this long-lasting debate offer their recent work in short, self contained case studies.

A collection of previously unpublished papers on a specific topic in historical linguistics - clause structure. These papers testify to the recent renewal of interest in diachronic syntax, a consequence of the new emphasis on comparative issues in the principles and parameters framework.

This ambitious work represents the first full-scale attempt to provide a restrictive theory of parameters, i.e. of the nature and limits of syntactic variation.

This study argues that polysynthetic languages - in which verbs are built up of many parts and where one verb can act as a whole sentence - are more than an accidental collection of morphological processes; rather they adopt a systematic way of representing predicate-argument relationships.

This work investigates the syntax of the higher portion of the functional structure of the clause using comparative data from hundreds of Northern Italian dialects. The area contains dialects that are different in most ways yet homogenous syntactically, making it ideal for this type of analysis.

Overt subjects are usually considered as a property of finite clauses. However, most Romance languages permit specified subjects in a broad range of infinitive constructions. Guido Mensching analyses this phenomenon in stages of French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and other Romance varieties.

A collection of previously unpublished papers on a specific topic in historical linguistics - clause structure. These papers testify to the recent renewal of interest in diachronic syntax, a consequence of the new emphasis on comparative issues in the principles and parameters framework.

This collection of articles provides an overview of current generative theorizing and empirical work on the nature, origin and scope of parameters of linguistic variation. Often taking diverging views, the papers in the volume address some or all of the main debated topics in parametric syntax.

This edited volume provides new insights into the architecture of Chinese grammar from a comparative perspective, using principles of cartography. The chapters in this book map out the "topography" of a variety of constructions in Chinese, specifically information structure, wh-question formation, and peripheral functional elements. The syntactic structure of Chinese makes it an ideal language for this line of research, offering a window into the origin of heavily"scrambled" constructions often observed in other languages.

Explores verbal and pronominal agreement with imposters from a cross-linguistic perspective. Contributions describe imposters in Bangla, Spanish, Albanian, Indonesian, Italian, French, Romanian, Mandarin and Icelandic.

Explores verbal and pronominal agreement with imposters from a cross-linguistic perspective. Contributions describe imposters in Bangla, Spanish, Albanian, Indonesian, Italian, French, Romanian, Mandarin and Icelandic.

Locality offers a range of new perspectives on an important aspect of syntactic movement. The papers collected here explore locality in two ways: the first section approaches locality in terms of pure syntax; the second approaches it in terms of psycholinguistics.

Locality offers a range of new perspectives on an important aspect of syntactic movement. The papers collected here explore locality in two ways: the first section approaches locality in terms of pure syntax; the second approaches it in terms of psycholinguistics.

The cartographic project considers evidence for a functional head in one language as evidence for it in universal grammar. In this volume, some of the most influential linguists who have participated in this long-lasting debate offer their recent work in short, self contained case studies.

This book is a treatise of a set of function words, the closed class of determiners. The dissection of a series of different determiners in German and other Germanic languages brings to light unexpected structural regularities previously unexplored in this class of words, regularities that resemble syntactic patterns familiar from the clause.

Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective collects twelve new papers that explore the syntax of Chinese in comparison with other languages.

Comparisons and Contrasts collects eleven of Richard Kayne's recent articles in theoretical syntax, with an emphasis on comparative syntax, which uses syntactic differences among languages to probe the properties of the human language faculty.

This is the first book on the syntax of the Niger-Congo language family, which includes most of the languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Aboh, who is a native speaker of one of the languages (Gungbe) discussed, analyses different aspects of the syntax of the Kwa language group. Aboh also suggests how grammatical pictures for these languages can shed some light on Universal Grammar in general.

The Romance Languages document remarkable variations in subject word order in different constructions, and have various restrictions in their occurrence. This volume does not attempt to create a consensus, but tries to represent and bring into dialogue the different sides of the debate.

These articles focus on clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and distribution of particles. They are written within the "principles and parameters" framework and contrast Portuguese with other Romance languages.

These articles focus on clause structure, clitic placement, word order variation, pronominal system, verb movement, quantification, and distribution of particles. They are written within the "principles and parameters" framework and contrast Portuguese with other Romance languages.

The Romance Languages document remarkable variations in subject word order in different constructions, and have various restrictions in their occurrence. This volume does not attempt to create a consensus, but tries to represent and bring into dialogue the different sides of the debate.

The author investigates the distribution and placement of verbal particles, which are words that do not change their form through inflection and do not fit easily into the established system of parts of speech. He analyses data from Norwegian, English, Dutch, German, and other languages.

This volume brings together twelve previously unpublished case studies of languages in which either topic and focus (or both) are configurationally encoded, i.e. languages in which those two notions are controlled by the syntactic structure of the language, if at all. Taken together, the papers characterize the wide range of variation in this area of syntax.

Every language has a syntactic means of distinguishing a negative from a non-negative sentence. Zanutti aims to show the range of variation in this ability by comparing the romance languages, and to reduce the differences to a constrained set of choices available to the grammar of these languages.

Adriana Belletti here collects work by top scholars presented at the University of Siena in connection with a visit by Noam Chomsky. The eight articles collected touch on broader theoretical questions related to Chomsky's Minimalist Program in particular. Contributors include Guglielmo Cinque, Richard Kayne, Luigi Rizzi, Noam Chomsky, and others.

Adriana Belletti here collects work by scholars presented at the University of Siena in connection with a visit by Noam Chomsky. The book's eight articles touch on broader theoretical questions related to Chomsky's Minimalist Program in particular. Contributors include Guglielmo Cinque, Richard Kayne, Luigi Rizzi, Noam Chomsky, and others.