Move! A Minimalist Theory of Construal

Move! A Minimalist Theory of Construal provides an accessible, in–depth, and empirically oriented look at Chomsky′s Minimalist Program.

This volume facilitates understanding of the concepts of the Minimalist Program framework and presents a theory which eliminates construal processes from Universal Grammar. In its place, this book generalizes movement to promote a rather homogeneous–looking Universal Grammar, bereft of many of the modules characteristic of GB–inspired proposals for the structure of Universal Grammar.

Move! articulates a far greater empirical range than any other single work in the Minimalist Program. It successfully explains the concepts of the framework, unifies many phenomena in new ways, and enables readers to understand several long–standing puzzles.

Preface.

1. The Minimalist Program.

2. Movement and Control.

3. Adjunct Control and Parasitic Gaps.

4. Attract and Sidewards Movement.

5. Is the Binding Theory Necessary?.

6. Case, C–command and Modularity.

Bibliography.

Norbert Hornstein is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research and teaching include both natural language semantics and syntactic theory. He is series editor of the Blackwell/Maryland Lectures in Language and Cognition, and his other publications include: Logical Form: From GB to Minimalism (Blackwell, 1995); Verb Movement (edited, with David Lightfoot, 1994); As Time Goes By: Tense and Universal Grammar (1990); and Logic as Grammar: An Approach to Meaning in Natural Language (1984).

"The book you are about to read is radical. It has the immodest and ambitious goal of eliminating construal processes from Universal Grammar. Control, anaphora, and pronominalization are all treated as by–products of movement. This book delivers the goods." Joseph Aoun, University of Southern California