Rethinking Syntactocentrism : Architectural Issues and Case Studies at the Syntax-pragmatics Interface

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Rethinking Syntactocentrism : Architectural Issues and Case Studies at the Syntax-pragmatics Interface
Description: The term ‘syntactocentrism'has been used to criticize the claim that syntax, as regarded in generative linguistics, plays the central role in modeling the mental architecture of the human language faculty. This research monograph explores the conjecture that many of the objections to the generative perspective, as they are formulated in alternative frameworks such as construction grammar, disappear once the consequences of recent minimalist theory are taken seriously. To show this, the book applies recent concepts of minimalist grammar to phenomena like the syntactic flexibility of idioms, the pragmatics of left-periphery-movement, or opacity effects involved in subextraction patterns. The book makes a new contribution to the field, as existing monographs on architectural matters in minimalism neither discuss alternative frameworks at length nor place a premium on pragmatic explanations for syntactic facts. The primary audience of this book are researchers and graduate students interested in a state-of-the-art discussion of grammatical architecture.
Authors: Andreas Trotzke
Resource Type: eBook.
Subjects: Generative grammar--Case studies, Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax--Case studies, Pragmatics--Case studies
Categories: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
Database: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
Description
Abstract:The term ‘syntactocentrism'has been used to criticize the claim that syntax, as regarded in generative linguistics, plays the central role in modeling the mental architecture of the human language faculty. This research monograph explores the conjecture that many of the objections to the generative perspective, as they are formulated in alternative frameworks such as construction grammar, disappear once the consequences of recent minimalist theory are taken seriously. To show this, the book applies recent concepts of minimalist grammar to phenomena like the syntactic flexibility of idioms, the pragmatics of left-periphery-movement, or opacity effects involved in subextraction patterns. The book makes a new contribution to the field, as existing monographs on architectural matters in minimalism neither discuss alternative frameworks at length nor place a premium on pragmatic explanations for syntactic facts. The primary audience of this book are researchers and graduate students interested in a state-of-the-art discussion of grammatical architecture.
ISBN:9789027257086
9789027268068