Phrase Structure in Natural Language

• 1: Modularity in Underlying Structure.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 On Defining Grammatical Relations in a Modular Theory.- 1.3 What is a Lexical Entry?.- 1.4 The Organization of Argument Structure: the Thematic Hierarchy.- 1.5 Case Theory and the Lexicon.- 1.6 S and S?: Extended X-bar Theory and the Lexical Clause Hypothesis.- 1.7 Dominance, Precedence and Phrase Markers.- Notes.- 2: Syntactic Projection and Licensing.- 2.1 Preliminaries: Licensing, the UTAH, the Projection Principle and the Theta Criterion.- 2.2 X-bar Theory and the Projection of Heads.- 2.3 Licensing Non-head Daughters: Thematic Grids and Thematic Relations.- 2.4 Functional Categories and Licensing.- 2.5 Summary.- Notes.- 3: On Configurationality Parameters.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Parametric Variation in D-Structure Principles.- 3.3 What is a Nonconfigurational Language?.- 3.4 The Empirical Evidence for D-Structure Variation.- 3.5 Summary and Conclusions.- Notes.- 4: Projection, Pronouns, and Parsing in Navajo Syntax.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 An Overview of Navajo Syntax and Morphology.- 4.3 Parsing, Null Arguments, and Grammatical Relations in Navajo.- 4.4 On Navajo Nominals as Adjuncts.- 4.5 Navajo Agreement and Incorporated Pronouns.- 4.6 Conclusion: Projection from the Lexicon in Navajo.- Notes.- 5: Concluding Remarks.- References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

'Her book deserves a reading by anyone interested in questions of phrase structure.' Language, 69 'Speas' book is a unique and comprehensive presentation of how syntactic structure is projected from lexical items, and how the syntactic diversity of the world's languages might consequently be seen from a unified perspective. Highly readable in its overview of the theoretical backgroud, and in its account of new developments and their consequences, this is a valuable and stimulating textbook for any course in syntactic structure and typological variation.' Kenneth L. Hale, MIT, Cambridge, USA