Symmetry Breaking in Syntax

A new theory of grammar which explores the old distinction between OV and VO languages and their underlying basic asymmetry.

Hubert Haider (Author)

9781107017757, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 December 2012

284 pages, 2 tables
23.1 x 15 x 2 cm, 0.55 kg

'There's a big idea at the core of this book, that natural languages have only right-branching structures: left-branching structures do not exist. Haider explored this idea in his 2010 Syntax of German, showing that it led to productive analyses for German, but here he takes things to a new level and examines consequences for analyses in a range of languages and compares his proposal to related ideas in other theoretical models.' David W. Lightfoot, Georgetown University

In this illuminating new theory of grammar, Hubert Haider demonstrates that there is a basic asymmetry in the phrase structure of any language, whatever sentence structure it takes. Moreover, he argues that understanding this asymmetry is the key to understanding the grammatical causality underlying a broad range of core syntactic phenomena. Until now, Germanic languages have been seen to fall into two distinct classes: those which take an object-verb sentence structure (OV) or a verb-object one (VO). However, by examining the nature of this universal underlying asymmetry, Hubert Haider reveals a third syntactic type: 'Type III'. In particular, he employs the third type to explore the cognitive evolution of grammar which gave rise to the structural asymmetry and its typological implications. Symmetry Breaking in Syntax will appeal to academic researchers and graduate students involved in comparative and theoretical syntax and the cognitive evolution of grammar.

1. What breaks the symmetry in syntactic structures
2. Linearizations are public, structures are private
3. BBC - asymmetry in phrase structuring
4. The cross-linguistic impact of the BBC
5. The Germanic OV/VO split
6. Adverbial positions in VO and in OV
7. Elements of the third kind - resultative predicates and particles - in OV and VO
8. Asymmetry in nominal structures - word and phrase structure
9. BBC or LCA? - fact finding and evaluation.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK]