Assuming no prior knowledge, Understanding Syntax illustrates the major concepts, categories and terminology associated with the study of cross-linguistic syntax. A theory-neutral and descriptive viewpoint is taken throughout. Starting with an overview of what syntax is, the book moves on to an explanation of word classes (such as noun, verb, adjective) and then to a discussion of sentence structure in the world’s languages. Grammatical constructions and relationships between words in a clause are explained and thoroughly illustrated, including grammatical relations such as subject and object; function-changing processes such as the passive and antipassive; case and agreement processes, including both ergative and accusative alignments; verb serialization; head-marking and dependent-marking grammars; configurational and non-configurational languages; questions and relative clauses. The final chapter explains and illustrates the principles involved in writing a brief syntactic sketch of a language, enabling the reader to construct a grammatical sketch of a language known to them. Data from approximately 100 languages appears in the text, with languages representing widely differing geographical areas and distinct language families. The book will be essential for courses in cross-linguistic syntax, language typology, and linguistic fieldwork, as well as for basic syntactic description.

Product Description: The third edition of Andrew Carnie’s Syntax: A Generative Introduction and The Syntax Workbook are now available as a set. His bestselling textbook on syntax has guided thousands of students through the discipline of theoretical syntax; retaining its popularity due to its combination of straightforward language, comprehensive coverage, and numerous exercises...read more

Lexical-Functional Syntax is the definitive text for Lexical-Functional Grammar in the field of syntax. Complete with integrated pedagogy and problem sets to support the text, this book provides an accessible, empirically-motivated treatment of the mathematical architecture of LFG. It also covers the theoretical linguistic ideas that LFG can model, and discusses the wide range of cross-linguistic syntactic phenomena to which it has been applied.

Product Description: This authoritative introduction explores the four main non-transformational syntactic frameworks: Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical-Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, and Simpler Syntax. It also considers a range of issues that arise in connection with these approaches, including questions about processing and acquisition...read more

Syntactic Theory emphasizes theory-building and hypothesis-testing as it develops and motivates Chomsky's Principles and Parameters framework. This textbook guides the student through introductory topics and also covers the more advanced topics that form the core empirical background to Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Exercises engage the student at every stage of the theory-development process.