Detailed table of contents (click here for short version)

Titlepage

1 Foundational issues

• Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar
• Rule formation and syntactic structure in language acquisition
  • A thought experiment
  • Rule-based word formation
  • Question formation
• More evidence for syntactic structure
  • Intuitions about words belonging together
  • Structural ambiguity
• Universal Grammar
  • Formal universals
  • Recursion
  • Parameters
• Generative grammar
  • Elementary trees and substitution
  • Grammaticality
  • Grammar versus language
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Expletive elements in English
  • Modals and auxiliary verbs in English
  • Questions

2 Syntactic constituenthood

• Tests for determining syntactic constituenthood
  • Substitution
  • Movement
  • Questions and short answers
  • It cleft focus
• Some complications
• Mismatches between syntactic structure and other structure
• False negative results
• Phrasal versus lexical constituents
• Finiteness
• Islands
• Representing syntactic constituenthood
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Finiteness in English
  • Node relations

3 Some basic linguistic relations

• Argumenthood
  • Semantic valency
  • Transitivity
• Modification
• Predication
  • Expletive it
  • Aristotelian versus Fregean predicates
  • Expletive there
  • Some special cases
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Adjectives
  • Expletive elements in English
  • Finiteness in English
  • Grammatical relations
  • Reference and related notions
  • Thematic roles

4 Introducing the X' schema of phrase structure

• The X' schema for elementary trees
  • Transitive elementary trees
  • The X' schema
  • Intransitive elementary trees
• Deriving simple sentences
• Deriving complex sentences
• The adjunct relation
  • Modification is different
  • The need for an adjunction operation
  • A typology of syntactic dependents
  • More on the distinction between complements and adjuncts
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Modals and auxiliary verbs in English
  • Reference and related notions
  • Thematic roles

5 Extending the X' schema

• Noun phrases
  • Parallels and differences between noun phrases and sentences
  • Noun phrases as DPs
  • More on determiners
  • Modification and related issues
• Adjective phrases
• Prepositional phrases
• Crosslinguistic variation in headedness
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Nouns

6 The verb movement parameter

• Verb raising: V movement to I
  • The French future tense
  • The order of adverbs and verbs in French
• Tense lowering: I movement to V
  • The order of adverbs and verbs in English
  • Do support in English
• Cues for the acquisition of verb raising
• Verb raising and related issues in the history of English
  • The loss of verb raising
  • A change in the status of not
  • The emergence of do support
  • The emergence of modals
  • Remnants of verb raising in modern English
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Modals and auxiliary verbs in English
  • Node relations

7 VP shells

• Double-object sentences
  • The structure of ordinary causative sentences
  • Parallels between causative sentences and double-object sentences
  • Abstract verb movement
• Double-complement sentences
  • Give and send
  • Put
  • Persuade
• The causative alternation
  • Manner of motion verbs
  • Get
• Further issues
  • Locality constraints on idioms
  • Small clauses revisited
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Thematic roles

8 Case theory

• A first look at case
  • The basic purpose of case
  • Case government
  • Synthetic versus analytic case marking
• Case features
• Case licensing
  • Spec-head licensing
  • Head-spec licensing
  • Head-comp licensing
  • Nonstructural conditions on case licensing
  • The dative-accusative distinction
• Case agreement (coming eventually...)
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Grammatical relations

9 Nonfinite clausal complements

• Selectional restrictions
• Subject control
  • Evidence for two clauses
  • Deriving subject control sentences
• Raising
  • A detour
  • Nonthematic subject positions
  • Deriving raising sentences
  • Tend and occur
  • Promise
• Object control
• More nonthematic subjects
  • Subject idiom chunks
  • Weather it
  • Summary
• Notes
• Exercises and problems

10 Passive

• Characteristics of the passive
• A movement analysis
  • Object idiom chunks
  • Analysis
  • The passive and nonfinite complementation
• Structural versus inherent case
• Exercises and problems

11 Wh- movement: Ross's island constraints

• Evidence for a movement analysis of questions
  • Complementation
  • Why a silent complementizer?
  • Case checking
  • Direct wh- questions
• The island constraints
  • The apparent unboundedness of wh- movement
  • A typology of islands
• Other instances of wh- movement
  • Wh- relative clauses
  • That relative clauses
  • Doubly marked relative clauses
  • Zero relative clauses
  • Topicalization
• Notes
• Exercises and problems

12 Wh- movement: Subjacency and the ECP

• Subjacency
  • Two possible derivations for long-distance wh- movement
  • IP as a barrier to wh- movement
  • DP as a barrier to wh- movement
  • The coordinate structure constraint revisited
• The Empty Category Principle (ECP)
  • Antecedent government
  • Lexical government
• Further issues and refinements
  • Is subjacency an independent principle?
  • Movement out of ECM complements
  • Movement out of DP
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Node relations

13 Parametric variation concerning wh- movement

• To move or not to move?
  • Wh- scope
  • Wh- in situ languages
  • A copy theory of movement
  • Partial wh- movement
  • But what if they're errors?
• Where to move?
  • Hungarian questions
  • Hungarian relative clauses
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Information structure
  • Questions

14 The verb-second (V2) phenomenon

• V2 in German
  • The linear position of the finite verb
  • The structural position of the finite verb
  • Movement to C as adjunction
  • Verb movement to C in declaratives
• V2 in the history of English
  • V2 in Middle English
  • A remnant of V2 in modern English
• Notes
• Exercises and problems

15 Binding theory: Syntactic constraints on the interpretation of noun phrases

• Coreference and coindexing
• Hellan 1988
  • The co-argument condition
  • The predication condition
  • The tensed IP condition
  • Strict vs. non-strict co-arguments
• Extending Hellan's binding theory to English
  • The co-argument condition
  • The predication condition
  • The tensed IP condition
• Chomsky 1981
  • Principle A
  • Principle B
  • Principle C
• Notes
• Exercises and problems (to be added)

Glossary

• Adjectives
• Expletive elements in English
• Finiteness in English
• Grammatical relations
• Modals and auxiliary verbs in English
• Node relations
• Nouns
• Questions
• Reference and related notions
• Thematic roles

References

• General literature and reference works
• Technical literature and sources
• Other textbooks