The edginess of silence : a study on chain linearization
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The edginess of silence : a study on chain linearization
（Studia grammatica, 84）
De Gruyter, c2019
Available at 7 libraries
Note
Revision of author's thesis (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011)
Includes bibliographical references (p. [125]-132) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Natural language differs from artificial ones in having the "displacement property," allowing expressions to "move" from one position to another in the sentence. The mapping from syntax to phonology, therefore, must include rules specifying how objects created by movement are pronounced, or in technical jargon, how chains are linearized. One of these rules is Copy Deletion. The present study investigates the structural description of Copy Deletion. Specifically, it proposes a phrase geometric constraint on its application. The proposal is corroborated by empirical arguments based on distributional and interpretational facts concerning predicate clefts, NP-Splits, and head ordering patterns. The data are drawn from languages of different types and families including Chinese, English, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Swedish, and Vietnamese. The book, thus, contributes to our understanding of a crucial property of natural language and should be of relevance to readers who are interested in the cross-linguistic approach to Universal Grammar research.
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