Books in the Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics series

Investigating the temporal structure of language, this book deals with central issues in the understanding of tense and aspect. It also proposes a different approach to the main problems in the area, and seeks to establish the universal semantic properties of two important and contentious aspectual categories, perfectivity and imperfectivity.

Presents a cross-linguistic study of infixation, which explores its prosodic, phonological, and morphological characteristics. This work also considers its diverse functions, and formulates a general theory to explain the rules and constraints by which it is governed. It examines 154 infixation patterns from over a hundred languages.

Linguists have realised that predicates of the "know" and "wonder" classes behave differently in semantic terms with respect to their interrogative complements, but have not so far fully understood how or why. This book seeks to explore and to provide solutions to this and to related problems.

Provides an argument for a radically modular view of the human language faculty on the basis of the comprehensive study of how word formation is constrained by different components of the grammar. This book argues that complex words are generated by a dedicated rule system, which interacts with syntax and phonology.

The first book to cover the grammar of clitics from all points of view, including their phonology, morphology, and syntax, and the first comprehensive survey of clitic phenomena for twenty years. Written with exceptional clarity and based on a course given to graduate students.

The first in-depth investigation of gapping and negation shows accepted accounts do not explain differences across languages, and available readings of the negation. The author questions basic assumptions in the analysis of gapping and presents a new syntactic analysis with implications for the interpretation of scope, and the theory of ellipsis.

This book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. H. Paul Grice first defined the concept. Since then his definition has seen many redefinitions. Christopher Potts returns to the original and uses it as a key into two areas of natural language: supplements and expressives.

This work focuses on the form of ellipsis known as sluicing, a feature of interrogative clauses, such as in "Sally's out hunting - guess what!"; and "Someone called, but I can't tell you who". The phenomenon is studied across 24 languages to try to explain it in linguistic and behavioural terms.

This volume explores the linguistic expression of modality in natural language from a cross-linguistic perspective, and demonstrates that modality involves many more syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than traditionally assumed.

This volume presents a crosslinguistic survey of the current theoretical debates around copular constructions from a generative perspective. The chapters combine the study of empirical data with theoretical analyses and shed light on key issues such as agreement, the nature of grammatical categories, and nominal predicates in syntax and semantics.

This volume presents a crosslinguistic survey of the current theoretical debates around copular constructions from a generative perspective. The chapters combine the study of empirical data with theoretical analyses and shed light on key issues such as agreement, the nature of grammatical categories, and nominal predicates in syntax and semantics.

This volume explores the many ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into genders or classes. The findings in the volume have significant implications for syntactic theory and theories of interpretation, and contribute to a greater understanding of the interplay between inflection and derivation.

This volume explores the many ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into genders or classes. The findings in the volume have significant implications for syntactic theory and theories of interpretation, and contribute to a greater understanding of the interplay between inflection and derivation.

This volume features cutting-edge research from leading authorities on the nature and structure of the verbal domain and the complexity of the Verb Phrase. Its three parts represent the areas in which contemporary debate on the verbal domain is most active.

This volume features cutting-edge research from leading authorities on the nature and structure of the verbal domain and the complexity of the Verb Phrase. Its three parts represent the areas in which contemporary debate on the verbal domain is most active.

This volume investigates the morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of language, and the interactions between them, from the perspective of Optimality Theory. It integrates optimization processes into the formal and functional study of grammar, interpreting optimization as the result of conflicting, violable ranked constraints.

This volume explores the linguistic expression of modality in natural language from a cross-linguistic perspective, and demonstrates that modality involves many more syntactic categories and levels of syntactic structure than traditionally assumed.

This volume takes a variety of approaches to the question 'what is a word?', with particular emphasis on where in the grammar wordhood is determined. The study of the interface between the syntactic and phonological modules of Universal Grammar underpins the discussion in this volume.

This volume takes a variety of approaches to the question 'what is a word?', with particular emphasis on where in the grammar wordhood is determined. The study of the interface between the syntactic and phonological modules of Universal Grammar underpins the discussion in this volume.

This book looks at the relationship between the structure of the sentence and the organization of discourse. Experts in the field make use of data from a variety of languages to examine the nature of these relations, where they come from, and how they apply.

This book looks at the relationship between the structure of the sentence and the organization of discourse. Experts in the field make use of data from a variety of languages to examine the nature of these relations, where they come from, and how they apply.

This book brings together research on the topic of causation from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. It draws on data from a wide range of languages and seeks to arrive at a more sophisticated understanding of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings, and how those meanings are organized into structures.

This book brings together research on the topic of causation from experts in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. It draws on data from a wide range of languages and seeks to arrive at a more sophisticated understanding of how causal concepts are expressed in causal meanings, and how those meanings are organized into structures.

This book investigates the nature and properties of roots, the core elements of word meaning. Chapters adopt different theoretical approaches to examine the interaction of roots with syntactic structure, and the role of their semantic and morpho-phonological properties in that interaction.

This book investigates the nature and properties of roots, the core elements of word meaning. Chapters adopt different theoretical approaches to examine the interaction of roots with syntactic structure, and the role of their semantic and morpho-phonological properties in that interaction.

This volume presents new work by leading researchers on central themes in the study of event structure: the nature and representation of telicity, change, and the notion of state. The book advances our understanding of these aspects by combining foundational semantic research with a series of case studies from a variety of languages.

This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the study of generics. It gathers new work from senior and young researchers and is organized along three main areas of study: the generic and individuals; genericity and time; and the sources of genericity and types of judgment.

This volume explores the expression of the concepts count and mass in human language and probes the complex relation between seemingly incontrovertible aspects of meaning and their varied grammatical realizations across languages.

This book considers the recent results and evaluations of the Theta System in both theoretical and experimental domains. Distinguished linguists from all over the world examine the theory in the context of an impressive array of new empirical data ranging from Germanic, Romance, and Slavic to Ugro-Finnish, and Semitic languages.

In this book, leading linguists explore the empirical scope of syntactic theory, by concentrating on a set of phenomena for which both syntactic and nonsyntactic analyses appear plausible. The volume is organized into four thematic sections: architectures; syntax and information structure; syntax and the lexicon; and lexical items at the interfaces