Foundations of Generative Syntax

This is the first entry-level introduction to generative syntax to develop a foundational approach that rationally reconstructs syntactic theory from the perspective of current research. It shows how basic grammatical concepts are incorporated into general principles that answer some of the fundamental questions of syntactic analysis, including the relationships between lexical and phrasal categories, the integration of transformations, the restricted distribution of NPs; (lexical and nonlexical), and levels of syntactic representation.The book introduces and motivates the basic components of Chomsky's principles-and-parameters theory with an extensive analysis of English and also data from a variety of other languages Beginning with simple concepts of phrase structure analysis, the text progresses systematically through the subtheories of Case, bounding, government, and predicate-argument structure (Ø-theory) to the more complicated concepts in binding theory and the analysis of empty categories. It also contains detailed discussions of overlapping conditions, a full discussion of the Principle of Lexical Satisfaction, as well as substantial material on parametric variation in bounding, Case, and binding. Many points of analysis refine the standard view. Numerous exercises reinforce and extend the concepts and analyses.Robert Freidin is Associate Professor and Director of the Program in Linguistics at Princeton University. He is editor of Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar.