This innovative analysis of noun incorporation and related linguistic phenomena does more than just give readers an insightful exploration of its subject. The author re-evaluates—and forges links between—two influential theories of phrase structure: Chomsky’s Bare Phrase Structure and Richard Kayne’s Antisymmetry. The text details how the two linguistic paradigms interact to cause differing patterns of noun incorporation across world languages. With a solid empirical foundation in its close reading of Northern Iroquoian languages especially, Barrie argues that noun incorporation needs no special mechanism, but results from a symmetry-breaking operation. Drawing additional data from English, German, Persian, Tamil and the Polynesian language Niuean, this synthesis has major implications for our understanding of the formation of the verbal complex and the intra-position (roll-up) movement. It will be priority reading for students of phrase structure, as well as Iroquoian language scholars.

This thesis is concerned with how syntactic structures are mapped into a linear order. As a starting point, I consider the initial merger of two heads, a and b, which forms the unordered set {gamma, {a, b}}, where gamma is the label of the set. The two heads, a and b c-command each other, in violation of Kayne's Linear Correspondence Axiom. Adopting Moro's Dynamic Antisymmetry, I propose that the non-projecting head moves to the specifier of the projecting head to eliminate symmetric c-command and establish linear order. This process triggers successive compl-to-spec movement until a phonologically empty head is merged into the derivation. Since phonologically empty elements do not need to be linearized, compl-to-spec movement is not required to break symmetric c-command. This process is the theoretical kernel of this thesis---that phrase structure is sensitive to the needs of PF, namely, the need to attain linear order, and that phrase structure is manipulated early in the derivation to achieve linear order. Empirically, this thesis is concerned with noun incorporation principally in Oneida (Iroquoian), but other languages are considered. It recognizes the robust cross-linguistic generalization for noun incorporation constructions to form N+V sequences, while non-incorporated constructions exhibit V+DP sequences (SOV languages aside, whose word order properties reduce to factors extraneous to those considered here). This thesis puts forth the proposal that noun incorporation arises by the need for grammar to be able to linearize the derivation. Thus, when a verb merges with a bare noun the {V, N} set is symmetric, thus non-linearizable. This symmetry forces compl-to-spec raising, giving rise to the observed N+V order. When the verb merges with a full DP, the verb asymmetrically c-commands material inside the DP, thus no compl-to-spec movement is required here. The empirical kernel of this thesis then is a Dynamic Antisymmetric treatment of the syntax of noun incorporation in which the cross-linguistically robust N+V sequence falls out as a consequence of the attempt on the part of phrase structure to achieve linearity.

The author that movement is triggered by the geometry of phrase structure.

This book is a research monograph that explores the implications of the strongest minimalist thesis from an antisymmetric perspective. Three empirical domains are investigated: nominal root compounds in German and English, nominal gerunds in English and their German counterparts, and small clauses in Russian and English. A point of symmetry that has the potential of stalling the derivation emerges in the derivation of all of these constructions. Building on certain assumptions on how Merge works, this book shows that the points of symmetry can all be resolved in the same way; despite the fact that the three empirical domains under investigation are standardly derived from distinct structural configurations, such as head-head merger in the case of root compounds, head-phrase merger as it arises from standard complementation/predication structures for nominal gerunds, and phrase-phrase merger in small clauses. This book is of interest to all researchers working on syntax and its interfaces.

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages is a one-stop reference for linguists on those topics that come up the most frequently in the study of the languages of North America (including Mexico). This handbook compiles a list of contributors from across many different theories and at different stages of their careers, all of whom are well-known experts in North American languages. The volume comprises two distinct parts: the first surveys some of the phenomena most frequently discussed in the study of North American languages, and the second surveys some of the most frequently discussed language families of North America. The consistent goal of each contribution is to couch the content of the chapter in contemporary theory so that the information is maximally relevant and accessible for a wide range of audiences, including graduate students and young new scholars, and even senior scholars who are looking for a crash course in the topics. Empirically driven chapters provide fundamental knowledge needed to participate in contemporary theoretical discussions of these languages, making this handbook an indispensable resource for linguistics scholars.

In this book Juan Uriagereka explores important consequences of the multiple spell-out hypothesis and of the linked notion of cyclicity. He combines the latest thinking in linguistics with perspectives drawn from physics, biology, and animal behaviour.

The study of syntax over the last half century has seen a remarkable expansion of the boundaries of human knowledge about the structure of natural language. The Routledge Handbook of Syntax presents a comprehensive survey of the major theoretical and empirical advances in the dynamically evolving field of syntax from a variety of perspectives, both within the dominant generative paradigm and between syntacticians working within generative grammar and those working in functionalist and related approaches. The handbook covers key issues within the field that include: • core areas of syntactic empirical investigation, • contemporary approaches to syntactic theory, • interfaces of syntax with other components of the human language system, • experimental and computational approaches to syntax. Bringing together renowned linguistic scientists and cutting-edge scholars from across the discipline and providing a balanced yet comprehensive overview of the field, the Routledge Handbook of Syntax is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students working in syntactic theory.