Overview
Part of the book series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory (SNLT, volume 58)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
About this book
Focusing primarily on Swedish, a Germanic language whose particles have not previously been studied extensively, Non-Projecting Words: A Case Study on Swedish Particles develops a theory of non-projecting words in which particles are morphologically independent words that do not project phrases.
Particles have long constituted a puzzle for Germanic syntax, as they exhibit properties of both morphological and syntactic constructs. Although non-projecting words have appeared in the literature before, it has gone largely unnoticed that such structures violate the basic tenets of X-bar theory. This work identifies these violations and develops a formally explicit revision of X-bar theory that can accommodate the requisite "weak" projections.
The resulting theory, stated in terms of Lexical-Functional Grammar, also yields a novel classification of clitics, and it sheds new light on a range of recent theoretical proposals, including economy, multi-word constructions, and the primitives of lexical semantics. At an abstract level, we see that the modular, parallel-projection architecture of LFG is essential to the description of a variety of otherwise recalcitrant facts about non-projecting words.
Particles have long constituted a puzzle for Germanic syntax, as they exhibit properties of both morphological and syntactic constructs. Although non-projecting words have appeared in the literature before, it has gone largely unnoticed that such structures violate the basic tenets of X-bar theory. This work identifies these violations and develops a formally explicit revision of X-bar theory that can accommodate the requisite "weak" projections.
The resulting theory, stated in terms of Lexical-Functional Grammar, also yields a novel classification of clitics, and it sheds new light on a range of recent theoretical proposals, including economy, multi-word constructions, and the primitives of lexical semantics. At an abstract level, we see that the modular, parallel-projection architecture of LFG is essential to the description of a variety of otherwise recalcitrant facts about non-projecting words.
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
Table of contents (7 chapters)
Reviews
From the reviews:
"In this book, Toivonen has produced an exceptionally lucid document, one that I do not hesitate to recommend to students and colleagues … this is that rare volume that contributes to linguistic theory while being highly accessible. The book furthermore strikes an exemplary balance between description and analysis; it is rich in clearly organized and insightfully presented data … . This book makes an important contribution." (Peter Svenonius, Language, Vol. 84 (3), 2008)
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Non-Projecting Words
Book Subtitle: A Case Study of Swedish Particles
Authors: Ida Toivonen
Series Title: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0053-6
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
-
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 2003
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-1531-1Published: 30 September 2003
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-1532-8Published: 30 September 2003
eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-0053-6Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 0924-4670
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0358
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 237
Topics: Grammar, Syntax, Theoretical Linguistics, Scandinavian, Comparative Linguistics, Germanic Languages