Elementary Syntactic Structures
Prospects of a Feature-Free Syntax

This book proposes a new model of syntax, in which all the fundamental units and properties of syntax are rethought.

Cedric Boeckx (Author)

9781316645376, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2019

220 pages, 3 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.1 cm, 0.3 kg

'Cedric Boeckx presents a novel re-conceptualization of contemporary linguistic theory aimed at precipitating the Chomskyan vision of a reduction of linguistics to biology. His achievement is to simultaneously reduce the language-specific aspects of mankind's biological endowment for language to an evolutionarily plausible core while saving the data of current linguistics: providing a roadmap for reconstituting within a lexicon-free syntax the descriptive and explanatory results of linguistics over linguistic universals and language typologies. This impressive and compelling volume should foster informed dialog across the disciplines toward the goal of understanding how the human brain manages language.' Alec Marantz, New York University

Most syntacticians, no matter their theoretical persuasion, agree that features (types or categories) are the most important units of analysis. Within Chomskyan generative grammar, the importance of features has grown steadily and within minimalism, it can be said that everything depends on features. They are obstacles in any interdisciplinary investigation concerning the nature of language and it is hard to imagine a syntactic description that does not explore them. For the first time, this book turns grammar upside down and proposes a new model of syntax that is better suited for interdisciplinary interactions, and shows how syntax can proceed free of lexical influence. The empirical domain examined is vast, and all the fundamental units and properties of syntax (categories, parameters, Last Resort, labelling, and hierarchies) are rethought. Opening up new avenues of investigation, this book will be invaluable to researchers and students in syntactic theory, and linguistics more broadly.

Preface
Abbreviations and symbols
1. Biolinguistic concerns
2. Syntactic order for free: merge ?
3. Trusting in the external systems: descent with modification
4. Elaborate grammatical structures: how (and where) to deal with variation
5. Interdisciplinary prospects
Appendix 1. Déjà vu all over again?
Appendix 2. Switching metaphors: from clocks to sandpiles
Appendix 3. More on the loss of syntactic variation
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Biology, life sciences [PS], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Psychology [JM], Philosophy [HP], Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Linguistics [CF]