Date: 30-Nov-2006 From: Paul Peranteau <paulbenjamins.com> Subject: The Minimalist Syntax of Defective Domains: Pires
Title: The Minimalist Syntax of Defective Domains
Subtitle: Gerunds and infinitives
Series Title: Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 98
Published: 2006
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Author: Acrisio Pires
Hardback: ISBN: 9027233624 Pages: 188 Price: U.S. $ 126.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027233624 Pages: 188 Price: Europe EURO 105.00
Abstract:
This book unifies the analysis of certain non-finite domains, focusing on subject licensing, agreement, Case and control. It proposes a minimalist analysis of English gerunds which allows only a null subject PRO (TP-defective gerunds), a lexical subject (gerunds as complements of perception verbs), or both types of subjects (clausal gerunds). It then analyzes Portuguese infinitives, showing that the morphosyntactic properties of non-inflected and inflected infinitives correlate with distinct treatments of obligatory and non-obligatory control. It explores these and other phenomena to show that tense and event binding do not correlate with the contrast between control and raising/exceptional case marking (ECM), against null Case theories of control. A Probe-Goal approach to Case and agreement is adopted in combination with a movement analysis of control. The book then investigates diachronic morphosyntactic phenomena involving infinitives, verb movement and cliticization in Portuguese, exploring a cue-based theory of syntactic change grounded in language acquisition.
Table of contents
Acknowledgments xi-xii Abbreviations and symbols xiii-xiv Introduction 1-14 1. The minimalist syntax of clausal gerunds 15-69 2. Clausal versus TP-defective gerunds: Control without tense 70-90 3. Agreement, case, control and movement in infinitives 91-124 4. Syntactic change: The development of inflected and non-inflected infinitives 125-165 Conclusion 166-167 References 168-179 Index 181-188
"Pires offers an insightful analysis of an old problem area, gerunds, which uses the central concepts of the Minimalist Program in productive fashion. In so doing, it yields understanding of gerunds and of the Minimalist Program. Another striking feature of the book is that it unifies syntactic analysis with questions of acquisition and of the triggering experience for the proposed analysis in young children. ALL syntactic analysis should discuss acquisitional triggers these days, but this is a rare book in doing it so well." David W. Lightfoot, National Science Foundation
"Acrisio Pires's new study is an important contribution to our understanding of deficient clausal domains as manifested in gerunds and (inflected) infinitives, with many original insights into the structural analysis and historical development of this elusive syntactic category." Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen
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