1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807023503321

Autore

Abels Klaus

Titolo

Phases : An essay on cyclicity in syntax / / by Klaus Abels

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin ; ; Boston, : De Gruyter, c2012

ISBN

1-283-85702-2

3-11-028422-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (332 p.)

Collana

Linguistische Arbeiten ; ; 543

Classificazione

ET 600

Disciplina

415

Soggetti

Grammar, Comparative and general - Syntax

Minimalist theory (Linguistics)

Generative grammar

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of glosses used -- 1 Introduction -- 2 On successive-cyclic movement -- 3 Some properties of movement -- 4 The theory of cyclicity and phases -- 5 Feature Values and Interpretation -- 6 The phase heads v, C, P and the stranding generalization -- 7 On adposition stranding -- 8 Phases -- 9 Bibliography -- 10 Index

Sommario/riassunto

The minimalist notion of a phase has often been investigated with a view to the interfaces. 'Phases' provides a strictly syntax-internal perspective. If phases are fundamental, they should provide the grounds for a unifying treatment of different syntactic phenomena. Concentrating on displacement, the book argues that this expectation is borne out: there is an empirical clustering of properties, whereby the phrases that undergo pied-piping are also the phrases that host intermediate traces of cyclic movement. The same phrases also host partial and secondary movement. Finally, the immediate complements within these phrases never strand the embedding heads. The phrases that show this behaviour are the phases (CP, vP, DP, and PP). To account for the cluster of properties, phases are claimed to have two special properties: their complement is inaccessible to operations outside, the Phase Impenetrability Condition; their heads may be endowed with unvalued features that are neither connected to the



categorical status of the phase nor interpreted on it. It is shown how the cluster of empirical properties flows naturally from these two assumptions, supporting the idea that phases are indeed a fundamental construct in syntax.