The main topic of this volume is the phrase structural analysis of noun phrases and sentences. This analysis is based on recent ideas within the Government and Binding framework and makes crucial use of such modules as Theta assignment, Binding Theory, Case assignment, as well as different definitions of the notion Barrier. The ten papers deal with certain aspects of English and German noun phrases.

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.

This second edition of James D. McCawley's classic textbook offers in one volume a complete course in the syntactic structure of English. New to this edition are sections on appositive constructions, parasitic gaps, contrastive negation, and comparative conditional sentences, as well as expanded coverage of cleft sentences and free relatives. The presentation is coherent, comprehensive, and systematically organized, beginning with an overview of McCawley's approach to syntactic analysis and progressing through the major constructions and processes of English grammar. No prior special knowledge of syntax is presupposed, and the number and variety of exercises after each chapter have been increased. And now available from the author! Answers to Selected Exercises. Instructors using James D. McCawley's The Syntactic Phenomena of English, Second Edition may request a complimentary copy of Answers to Selected Exercises in The Syntactic Phenomena of English by writing on their department's letterhead to the author, James D. McCawley, Department of Linguistics, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. [Note: This material is available only from the author and is not available from the University of Chicago Press.]

O. PRELIMINARY REMARKS Initial drafts of the papers in this collection were presented in a con ference entitled 'Views on Phrase Structure', held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in March, 1989. Eleven of the twenty-three partici pants in the conference were able to contribute to this volume. The purpose of the conference was to explore theories of phrase structure in their relation to other subsystems of grammar and/or systems of nonlinguistic knowledge. Some of the grammatical subsystems which the authors consider are theta-theory, movement, Case, and binding; a number of papers address how the conceptual system and/or aspects of language use may interact. Unifying the various approaches and perspectives is an attempt to furnish hypotheses concerning prin ciples of phrase structure with some sort of independent justification. 1. PHRASE STRUCTURE THEORY: A BRIEF HISTORY A basic outline for a theory of phrase structure theory is accepted by all of the authors here; it is known as 'X-bar theory'. The concepts of X-bar theory are expressed in some form by a number of pre-generative linguists. For example, Bloomfield (1933) contrasted endocentric struc tures such as noun phrases and verb phrases with those he considered exocentric, e. g. prepositional phrases and clauses. Jespersen (1933), while presenting a functional system of description (in terms of 'ranks', where rank one is 'nominal', for example), clarified the relations among the head of a phrase, its modifier, and a phrase which modifies the modifier.

This is the first of a two-volume selection of refereed and revised papers, originally presented at the international conference "From NP to DP" at the University of Antwerp. The papers address issues in the syntax and semantics of the noun phrase, in particular the so-called DP-hypothesis which takes noun phrases to be headed by a functional head D(eterminer). The major concerns can be grouped around 3 subthemes: the internal syntax of noun phrases, the syntax and semantics of bare nouns and indefinites and the expression of measurement in noun phrases. The wealth of data coming from over 40 different languages combined with a thorough introduction to the current issues in the field of NPs/DPs and some alternative syntactic and semantic analyses, provide a comprehensive reference work from both a descriptive and a theoretical point of view. The second volume is concerned exclusively with the expression of possession in noun phrases.

Incomplete Category Fronting is a detailed investigation of the syntax of incomplete category fronting in German, carried out from a cross-linguistic perspective. The study presents a wealth of empirical evidence involving unbound traces created by remnant topicalization, wh-movement, scrambling, left dislocation, and extraposition. Four characteristic properties of remnant movement are identified that pose severe problems for a representational movement theory. It is argued that these properties can be fruitfully addressed on the basis of Chomsky's minimalist program, and that they follow from a derivational movement theory that incorporates the Barriers Condition, the Strict Cycle Condition, Fewest Steps, Last Resort, and the Minimal Link Condition but completely dispenses with surface filters. Incomplete Category Fronting provides an empirical underpinning for the minimalist program and presents a powerful argument for a derivational theory of grammar. Audience: Incomplete Category Fronting will interest all linguists working on theoretical syntax, Germanic syntax or the syntax-semantics interface.

This book uses corpus-based methodologies to investigate the wide variety of factors behind verb number agreement with complex collective noun phrases in English. The literature on collective nouns and their agreement patterns spans an array of disciplines and approaches. However, little of the research conducted to date has focused on the influence of of-dependents on verb number with relational collective nouns, as in examples such as a bunch of or a group of. Drawing on data from two case studies – one based on the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), and the other on the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) – Fernández-Pena uses statistical modelling to unpack the different morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical dimensions of the variables affecting verb number agreement with complex collective noun phrases in English. This multidimensional analysis of the significance of of-dependents in the patterning and contemporary usage of collective nouns offers new insight into and understanding of both synchronic variation and diachronic change. This book is an essential read for scholars of English language variation and change, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, and usage-based approaches to the study of language.