The Function of Function Words And Functional Categories (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today)

303 Pages·2005·3.61 MB·English

by  Marcel Den Dikken

<DOCINFOAUTHOR""TITLE"TheFunctionofFunctionWordsandFunctionalCategories"SUBJECT"LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday,Volume78"KEYWORDS""SIZEHEIGHT"240"WIDTH"160"VOFFSET"4">
TheFunctionofFunctionWordsandFunctionalCategories
LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday
LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday(LA)providesaplatformfororiginalmonographstudies
intosynchronicanddiachroniclinguistics.StudiesinLAconfrontempiricalandtheoretical
problemsasthesearecurrentlydiscussedinsyntax,semantics,morphology,phonology,and
systematicpragmaticswiththeaimtoestablishrobustempiricalgeneralizationswithina
universalisticperspective.
SeriesEditors
WernerAbraham EllyvanGelderen
UniversityofVienna ArizonaStateUniversity
AdvisoryEditorialBoard
CedricBoeckx IanRoberts
HarvardUniversity CambridgeUniversity
GuglielmoCinque KenSafir
UniversityofVenice RutgersUniversity,NewBrunswickNJ
GüntherGrewendorf LisadeMenaTravis
J.W.Goethe-University,Frankfurt McGillUniversity
LilianeHaegeman StenVikner
UniversityofLille,France UniversityofAarhus
HubertHaider C.Jan-WouterZwart
UniversityofSalzburg UniversityofGroningen
ChristerPlatzack
UniversityofLund
Volume78
TheFunctionofFunctionWordsandFunctionalCategories
EditedbyMarceldenDikkenandChristinaM.Tortora
The Function of Function Words
and Functional Categories
Editedby
Marcel den Dikken
TheGraduateCenter,TheCityUniversityofNewYork
Christina M. Tortora
TheCollegeofStatenIslandandTheGraduateCenter,
TheCityUniversityofNewYork
JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
TM Thepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirements
8
ofAmericanNationalStandardforInformationSciences–Permanence
ofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials,ansiz39.48-1984.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Thefunctionoffunctionwordsandfunctionalcategories /editedbyMarcel
denDikken,ChristinaM.Tortora.
p. cm.(LinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday,issn0166–0829;v.78)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral--Functionwords. 2.
Functionalism(Linguistics) 3.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral--
Grammaticalcategories. I.Dikken,Marcelden,1965- II.Tortora,
Christina. III.Linguistikaktuell;Bd.78.
P283.F86 2005
415--dc22 2005048395
isbn9027228027(Hb;alk.paper)
©2005–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyform,byprint,photoprint,microfilm,or
anyothermeans,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.
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JohnBenjaminsNorthAmerica·P.O.Box27519·Philadelphiapa19118-0519·usa
JB[v.20020404] Prn:8/07/2005;9:01 F:LA78CO.tex / p.1(46-95)
Table of contents
Acknowledgements vii
Thefunctionoffunctionwordsandfunctionalcategories 1
MarceldenDikkenandChristinaM.Tortora
VerbsecondasafunctionofMerge 11
Jan-WouterZwart
Nonnativeacquisitionofverbsecond:Ontheempirical
underpinningsofuniversalL2claims 41
UteBohnacker
Clauseunionandclausalposition 79
JosefBayer,TanjaSchmidandMarkusBader
ExplainingExpl 115
MarcRichardsandTheresaBiberauer
Reflexivesincontextsofreducedvalency:Germanvs.Dutch 155
MarikaLekakou
Simpletense 187
GuidoVandenWyngaerd
Possessorlicensing,definitenessandcaseinScandinavian 217
MaritJulien
Pronounsaredeterminersafterall 251
DorianRoehrs
Index 287

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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank severalparties associated with the 19th Comparative
Germanic Syntax Workshop (CGSW19) here. First, we are very grateful to
AlisonGabriele,ShukhanNg,andErikaTrosethfortheirhelpinorganizingthe
conference.There were severalother papers presentedat this conference,be-
yondthecontributionstothisvolume.Wewouldliketothankthetwoinvited
speakers, Hans Bennis and Alison Henry, as well as Jonathan Bobaljik, Ellen
Brandner,HansBroekhuis,SiobhánCottell,VeraLee-Schoenfeld,ThomasLeu,
Lisa Levinson, Erik Magnusson, and Eric Stenshoel for their contributions
to the event. We thank the many colleagues who reviewed the abstracts sub-
mitted to the workshop, and would also like to express our gratitude to the
reviewersofthe paperssubmittedtothisvolume:SjefBarbiers,HansBennis,
JudyBernstein,JonathanBobaljik,CédricBoeckx,AnnaCardinaletti,Norbert
Corver, Mürvet Enç, Gisbert Fanselow, Kleanthes Grohmann, Barbara Hem-
forth,ChristerPlatzack,CeciliaPoletto,HenkvanRiemsdijk,IanRoberts,Ken
Safir, Cristina Schmitt, BonnieSchwartz, MarkusSteinbach, PeterSvenonius,
Øystein Alexander Vangsnes, Susi Wurmbrand, and Martha Young-Scholten.
Finally,wewouldliketothankWernerAbrahamforinvitingustopublishthis
collectionofpapersfromCGSW19intheLinguistikAktuell/LinguisticsToday
series.

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The function of function words
and functional categories
MarceldenDikkenandChristinaM.Tortora
The papers containedin this volume were all presentedat the 19th Compar-
ative Germanic Syntax Workshop, held at The Graduate Center of The City
UniversityofNewYork,3–5June2004.Whiletheworkshopitselfhadnospe-
cialtheme,theselectedpapersbroughttogetherherealladdress,inonewayor
another,thequestionraisedbythetitleofthevolume:whatisthefunctionof
functionwordsandfunctionalcategories?Inthesepages,webrieflyintroduce
thecontributionstothisvolumewiththiscentralthemeasourguide,relating
thepaperstooneanotherbypresentingtheminaparticularorder,andhigh-
lighting what we believe are their most significant theoretical and empirical
results.Byrelatingthevariouscontributionstooneanotherinthisparticular
way,thisintroductionalsoservestoprovidearationalefortheorderinwhich
thepapersarepresentedinthevolume.
The syntax of function words and functional projections has dominated
research in generative grammar in the last two decades, with perhaps the
strongestimpetus tothis research having been givenbyBorer’s (1984)hypo-
thesisthatallparametricvariationisconfinedtomorpho-lexicalpropertiesof
functionalcategories–ahypothesisthathassincebecomethebasisofworkon
parametric variation within various different paradigms of research, includ-
ing that defined by Chomsky’s (1995 et passim) minimalist program. In his
contribution to the volume, Jan-Wouter Zwart departs in an interesting way
fromthis widely accepted hypothesis, denying that morphological properties
of functional heads in the leftperiphery(their ‘richness’, in particular) could
beresponsibleforthequestionofwhetheralanguagedoesordoesnotexhibit
Verb Second. Zwart’s approach to Verb Second is profoundly different from
those which take some morphological property (be it feature strengthor the