The Syntax Of Relativization

The Syntax of Relativization

Analyzing Syntax

Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach is a comprehensive and accessible 2004 textbook on syntactic analysis, designed for students of linguistics at advanced undergraduate or graduate level. Working within the 'Lexical Functional Grammar' (LFG) approach, it provides students with a framework for analyzing and describing grammatical structure, using extensive examples from both European and non-European languages. Topics covered include: tests for constituency, passivization and other relation-changing processes, reflexive pronouns, the control relation, Topic and Focus, relative clauses and Wh-questions, causative constructions, serial verbs, 'quirky case', and ergativity. As well as building on what linguists have learned about language in general, particular attention is paid to the unique features of individual languages. While its primary focus is on syntactic structure, the book also deals with aspects of meaning, function and word-structure that are directly relevant to syntax. Clearly organised into topics, this textbook is ideal for one-semester courses in syntax and grammatical analysis.

Featural Relations in the Brain: Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives on Grammatical Agreement, 2nd Edition

Successful speaking and understanding hinges on the almost effortless capacity of speakers to decode and build dependencies among words in a sentence, based on covariance in some specific feature(s). Whenever two features covary, an agreement relation is established. Agreement is a widespread and varied phenomenon: its pervasiveness in some languages contrasts with its near absence in others, which poses a challenge for linguists and psycholinguists that attempt to explain the mechanics of its representation, processing and acquisition. Agreement has been extensively investigated from a theoretical perspective, but also from the point of view of psycholinguistics and the cognitive neuroscience of language. Theoretical linguistics has provided an articulated system of structural representations and computations on which the establishment of agreement relations hinges, while psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience have aimed at unveiling the algorithms that underlie the use of these computations and their behavioral and neuro-physiological bases. The goal of this Research Topic is to draw together multiple and interdisciplinary work to highlight the state of the art in the study of agreement and propose new perspectives on this research topic. Publisher’s note: In this 2nd edition, the following article was added: Mancini S, Caffarra S and Nevins A (2021) Editorial: Featural Relations in the Brain: Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives on Grammatical Agreement. Front. Psychol. 12:754430. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.754430