A Course in Minimalist Syntax: Foundations and Prospects

A Course in Minimalist Syntax is a straightforward and detailed introduction to essential topics in the Minimalist Program, designed for students and scholars alike. Building on the authors previous works on minimalist syntax, this volume maintains an informal tone yet contains sufficient fresh material to appeal at the highest level.

Written by the authors of the classic A Course in GB Syntax, this book provides a natural extension of their classroom approach to linguistics, and shows readers a new way of approaching syntax by thinking in minimalist terms.

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

Abbreviations.

1. Minimalist Expectations: Preliminary Assumptions, with a Review of Some Familiar Notions.

2. From Rules to Principles and Beyond: A Strongly Constructivist System, with a Detailed Presentation of Phrase–structure.

3. The Economy of Derivations: Featuring Movements of Various Sorts and Ways to Constrain Them.

4. The Economy of Representations: Featuring Chain Uniformity and Case.

5. The Last Resort Character of Linguistic Computations: On What Drives the Movement Operation and Related Topics.

6. LF Processes: Why We (Don t?) Need Them and What They Might Be.

7. Roles, Cycles, Binding and Related Problems: Including a Discussion of Open Questions Relating Wh–movement.

References.

Index.

Howard Lasnik is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland. His publications include Essays on Anaphora (1989), Minimalist Syntax (Blackwell, 1999), and Minimalist Investigations in Linguistic Theory (2003).

Juan Uriagereka is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, and is author of A Course in GB Syntax (with Howard Lasnik, 1988) and Rhyme and Reason: An Introduction to Minimalist Syntax (1998).

Cedrick Boeckx is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University. He is the author of Islands and Chains (2003) and Multiple Wh–fronting (edited with K. K. Grohmann, 2003).

Most introductions present syntactic theories as completed wholes. They march through a series of illustrative problems and give them final answers in an authoritative tone. This is a very different work, with more attention paid to why the field should be of interest and to where there are unanswered questions. Whether you are new to the study of syntax and wondering why anyone would be interested in minimalism, or an old hand stopping by to find out whatever happened to the ECP, this book will grab you. It is a gem." Randall Hendrick, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This book anchors abstract minimalist speculations to some of the fundamental empirical problems that have occupied syntactic theory for the past half century and shows how current ideas developed naturally from previous ones. It is essential reading for understanding how the Minimalist Program advances the study of human language." Robert Freidin, Princeton University