The Syntax and Structure of Unbounded Dependencies

The syntactical construction of questions and some relative clauses creates what linguists call unbounded dependencies. In a sentence like "What book are you reading?," the phrase "what book" occupies a special fronted position in the sentence, but is at the same time the object of the verb "reading" and would otherwise be expected to appear immediately following the verb. The relation between the fronted phrase and its grammatical function can cross an unlimited number of clause boundaries, hence the term unbounded dependency. Taking a variety of approaches, this collection offers the first volume exclusively devoted to the treatment of unbounded dependencies within the framework of lexical functional grammar.