A Feature-Based Syntax of Functional Categories : The Structure, Acquisition and Specific Impairment of Functional Systems.

Intro -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1. Aims and approach -- 2. Elements of Minimalist syntax -- 3. Feature-based projection of functional categories -- Chapter 2: A feature-based derivation of functional heads -- 1. The syntactic utility of functional heads -- 2. Derived functional heads -- 2.1. Derived functional heads in the literature -- 2.2. Feature matrices and constraints -- 2.3. Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 3: Germanic verb-second and expletive subjects -- 1. Patterns of Germanic verb-second -- 2. Expletive subjects -- 3. Verb-second and the Top domain in Old English and Middle English -- 3.1. Early English verb-second -- 3.2. A feature-based account of Old and Middle English verb-second -- 3.3. Middle English dialects and language change -- 3.4. Streamlining accounts of Old English word order below the TOPIC domain -- Notes -- Chapter 4: Aspects of clitic placement and clitic climbing -- 1. Head movement accounts of clitic placement -- 2. Verb and clitic movement -- 2.1. Mechanics of clitic placement in Italian and Spanish -- 2.2. Clitic placement in French -- 2.3. Imperatives -- 2.4. The orders of multiple object clitics in Modern Greek -- 3. Problems with clitic climbing in a feature-based syntax -- 4. A feature-based approach to clitic climbing -- 4.1. Restructuring -- 4.2. Mechanics of clitic climbing with feature-derived functional categories -- 4.3. Some properties of clitic climbing -- 4.4. Other accounts of clitic climbing -- 4.5. Clitic climbing out of finite clauses in Salentino -- 5. Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 5: Tenseless clauses and coordination -- 1. Accusative subject conjuncts -- 1.1. Properties of the accusative subject conjunct construction -- 1.2. The structure of coordination in the ASC construction -- 1.3. The internal structure of the ASC clause -- 2. Small clause complements of perception verbs.

2.1. The ASC-like structure of "Bare Infinitive" complements -- 2.2. Higginbotham's (1983) account -- Notes -- Chapter 6: The acquisition of functional features -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Preliminaries -- 2.1. Feature projection versus functional category adjunction -- 2.2. The present study -- 3. Results -- 3.1. Peter -- 3.2. Nina -- 3.3. Naomi -- 4. Discussion and conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 7: The acquisition of adult functional categories -- 1. Theories and predictions -- 1.1. Strong continuity accounts -- 1.2. Radford's maturational theory -- 1.3. Induction -- 1.4. Bottom-up structure building accounts -- 1.5. Feature-based theory of functional categories -- 1.6. Processing capacity, working memory, and phrase structure complexity -- 2. Procedures -- 2.1. Counting functional categories -- 2.2. Size normalization and nominative subject filtering -- 2.3. A measure of phrase structure complexity -- 2.4 Reliability -- 3. Results -- 3.1. Peter -- 3.2. Nina -- 3.3. Naomi -- 3.4. Summary -- 4. Discussion of results -- 4.1. The development of the adult functional category system -- 4.2. Non-adult feature matrices -- 5. Structure building approaches to the acquisition of functional categories -- 5.1. Guilfoyle and Noonan -- 5.2. Vainikka -- 5.3. Summary -- 6. A new picture of maturation -- 6.1. On the maturation of representational resources -- 6.2. Minimal functional projection and the maturation of minimal functional structure -- 7. Results of studies of functional category acquisition in other languages -- 7.1. The growth of functional categories -- 7.2. Feature ordering and feature co-occurrence restrictions -- Notes -- Chapter 8: The representation of functional categories as a factor in Specific Language Impairment -- 1. Theories and predictions -- 1.1. Deficits in agreement -- 1.2. Extended optional infinitives -- 1.3. Deficits in implicit rules.

1.4. Impoverished inventories of functional elements -- 1.5. Feature-based theory -- 2. Method -- 3. Results -- 3.1. Results for children with SLI -- 3.2. Comparison with language-matched ND children -- 4. Discussion -- 5. Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 9: Conclusion -- Appendix -- References -- Index of names -- Index of subjects.

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.