Syntactic Anchors
On Semantic Structuring

An examination of the relationship between structure and meaning in words.

Juan Uriagereka (Author)

9780521182362, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 February 2011

368 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

One of the major arenas for debate within generative grammar is the nature of paradigmatic relations among words. Intervening in key debates at the interface between syntax and semantics, this book examines the relation between structure and meaning, and analyzes how it affects the internal properties of words and corresponding syntactic manifestations. Adapting notions from the Evo-Devo project in biology (the idea of 'co-linearity' between structural units and behavioural manifestations) Juan Uriagereka addresses a major puzzle: how words can be both decomposable so as to be acquired by children, and atomic, so that they do not manifest themselves as modular to adults.

1. In defense of Deep-Structure
2. So what's in a Word?
3. Relational nouns, reference and grammatical relations
4. Online conditions and parametric variation
5. Prepositional case throughout
6. Iteration and related matters
7. (Re)interpreting the Chomsky hierarchy
8. Naturalizing meaning
Epilogue. Evo-Devo-Perfo.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]