LINGUIST List 13.1973

Thu Jul 25 2002

Books: Syntax:Discontinuous NPs in German,K.De Kuthy

Editor for this issue: Dina Kapetangianni <dinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Christine Sosa, Discontinuous NPs in German by Kordula De Kuthy

CSLI Publications is pleased to announce the availability of:

DISCONTINUOUS NPs IN GERMAN; Kordula De Kuthy (The Ohio State 
University); paper ISBN: 1-57586-398-7, $28.00, cloth ISBN: 
1-57586-397-9, $70.00, 206 pages. CSLI Publications 2002. 
http://cslipublications.stanford.edu , email: pubscsli.stanford.edu.

To order this book, contact The University of Chicago Press. Call 
their toll free order number 1-800-621-2736 (U.S. & Canada only) or 
order online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ (use the search 
feature to locate the book, then order).

Book description:

This book investigates the occurrence of discontinuous noun phrases, a
word order phenomenon in German. De Kuthy explores the division of
labor between the syntactic analysis, lexical constraints, and
discourse constraints of this phenomenon. She argues that many of the
factors that previous literature has tried to explain in terms of
syntactic restrictions on movement are in fact derivable from
discourse factors.

A prepositional phrase in German can occur separately from the noun
phrase it modifies. Working within the framework of Head-Driven Phrase
Structure Grammar (HPSG), De Kuthy examines the syntactic analysis of
the NP--PP split construction and provides an explicit theory that
licenses reanalysis-like structures for this split. She goes on to
identify lexical-semantic and discourse restrictions on the occurrence
of discontinuous noun phrases. De Kuthy presents an account of the
lexical-semantic effects, based on the Generative Lexicon, and
integrates it with her HPSG analysis.

De Kuthy explores the possible focus-background structures of NP-PP
split constructions. She shows that discourse restrictions can be
deduced from information-structure requirements of the construction
and she formalizes this insight by developing and integrating an
information-structure component into her HPSG analysis.
Interestingly, some of the restrictions on movement that have been
traditionally viewed as being syntactic automatically fall out of this
information-structure module.

This book ultimately provides an exemplary argument for rethinking the
division of labor between syntax theory and a theory of discourse.