This volume brings together a number of researchers working on non-cartographic conceptions of word order, movement and/or phrase structure. The proposals made in this book discuss both problems for standard cartographic theory as well as alternatives. As such, this book is the first to present a varied and in-depth overview of the position taken by a substantial number of researchers in the field today on what is presumably one of the most hotly debated and controversial issues in present-day generative grammar.

Autorentext

Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, University College Brussels, Belgium.

Zusammenfassung

In the 1980s generative grammar recognized that functional material is able to project syntactic structure in conformity with the X-bar-format. This insight soon led to a considerable increase in the inventory of functional projections. The basic idea behind this line of theorizing, which goes by the name of cartography, is that sentence structure can be represented as a template of linearly ordered positions, each with their own syntactic and semantic import.

In recent years, however, a number of problems have been raised for this approach. For example, certain combinations of syntactic elements cannot be linearly ordered. In light of such problems a number of alternative accounts have been explored. Some of them propose a new (often interface-related) trigger for movement, while others seek alternative means of accounting for various word order patterns.

These alternatives to cartography do not form a homogeneous group, nor has there thus far been a forum where these ideas could be compared and confronted with one another. This volume fills that gap. It offers a varied and in-depth view on the position taken by a substantial number of researchers in the field today on what is presumably one of the most hotly debated and controversial issues in present-day generative grammar.