Date: 28-Jun-2005 From: Paul Peranteau <paulbenjamins.com> Subject: Infinitival Syntax: Schmid
Title: Infinitival Syntax
Subtitle: Infinitivus Pro Participio as a repair strategy
Series Title: Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 79
Published: 2005
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Author: Tanja Schmid, University of Konstanz
Hardback: ISBN: 9027228035 Pages: xiv, 251 Price: U.S. $ 138.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027228035 Pages: xiv, 251 Price: Europe EURO 115.00
Abstract:
This monograph offers a new analysis of West Germanic 'Infinitivus Pro Participio' (IPP) constructions, within the framework of Optimality Theory. IPP constructions have long been problematic for syntactic theory, because a bare infinitive is preferred over the expected past participle. The book shows how the substitution of the past participle by the infinitive in IPP constructions can be captured straightforwardly if constraints are assumed to be violable. The basic idea is that IPP constructions are exceptional because they violate otherwise valid rules of the language. Thus, IPP is a 'last resort' or repair strategy, which is only visible in cases in which the past participle would be 'even worse'. Furthermore, as the choice of Optimality Theory naturally leads to a crosslinguistic account, the book systematically examines and compares infinitival constructions from seven West Germanic languages including Afrikaans, Dutch, German, West Flemish, and three Swiss German dialects.
Acknowledgements v
List of constraints xiii
Introduction 1
Infinitive or past particle 9
The verb order 35
Main features of previous analyses of the IPP 83
Introduction to Optimality Theory (OT) 97
A case study of German I: Obligatory versus impossible IPP 105
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