Theoretical Approaches to Disharmonic Word Order

Theresa Biberauer is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, where she is also a Fellow of Churchill College, and an Associate Professor Extraordinary at her South African alma mater, Stellenbosch University. Her research interests are principally in theoretical and comparative (synchronic and diachronic) morphosyntax, with Germanic generally and Afrikaans in particular being areas of specific interest. Her past work has focused on word-order variation, (null) subject phenomena, negation, information structure, and the larger question of the nature of parametric variation.Michelle Sheehan is a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge specialising in comparative syntax with a particular interest in the Romance languages. She has worked on null arguments, Control, word order variation, extraposition, clausal-nominal parallels and case/alignment. She is co-author of the CUP volume Parametric Variation: Null Subjects in Minimalist Theory and the forthcoming volumes The Final over Final Constraint (MIT Press) and The Philosophy of Universal Grammar (OUP).

• PART I: ON THE NATURE OF DISHARMONY; PART II: THE ROLE OF PROSODY; PART III: THE QUESTION OF ANTISYMMETRY; PART IV: NOVEL ALTERNATIVES TO ANTISYMMETRY; PART V: THE FINAL-OVER-FINAL CONSTRAINT

impressive from many points of view ... It goes without saying that the book is a 'must-read' not only for researchers interested in the issue of word order, but also for typologists, generativists, theoreticians, and descriptive linguists ... the editors of the volume should be warmly congratulated, not only for managing to harmonise the contents of the book by selecting complementary analyses which neatly piece together the puzzle of word order harmony and disharmony, but also for the excellent introductory chapter, a well-informed, up-to-date discussion of the multiple issues raised by harmony and disharmony.