LINGUIST List 13.2350

Wed Sep 18 2002

Books: Syntax/Polynesian Languages: den Dikken

Editor for this issue: Tomoko Okuno <tomokolinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. LE, Marcel den Dikken: Syntax/Polynesian languages

The Structure of the Noun Phrase in Rotuman

Marcel den Dikken
The Graduate Center of The City University of New York

The structure of the noun phrase in Rotuman (a Polynesian SVO isolate)
is an excellent window on the syntax of the language as a whole, and
on important theoretical issues. An analysis of the Rotuman complex
noun phrase is presented in terms of massive leftward pied-piping
movement, offering an account of the peculiar definiteness marking
system of the language and identifying the trigger of 'complete phase'
marking as a [+definite] D/6head. Chapters 2/4 develop this account,
alongside a in-depth analyses of the number and classifier systems,
possessed noun phrases and relative clause constructions. Relatives
are discussed further in chapter 5, with reference to resumption and
the clitic status of subject pronouns.

The account is subse-quently extended to two apparently verbal domains
featuring 'complete phase' marking: the ingressive tense construction
(chapter 6), and the cleft and existential constructions (chapter 7).
The analysis yields insight into the workings of massive pied-piping
movement within DP, supports an analysis of possessive noun phrases
based on a dative PP and featuring predicate inversion, vindicates an
analysis of relative clauses as predica-tive CPs with null operator
movement, provides new insight into the analysis of progressive
constructions, and underpins an inverse predication approach to
there-sentences and it-cleft constructions. The mix of theoretical
and empirical investigations on the basis of a syntactic system
hitherto uninvestigated in the theoretical literature will make this
work of interest to a broad audience of theoreticians, descriptivists
and typologists.

ISBN 3 89586 455 2.
LINCOM Studies in Austronesian Linguistics 05.
84pp. USD 36 / EUR 38 / GBP 24.

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