The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.
Covering linguistic research on empty categories over more than three decades, this monograph presents the result of an in-depth syntactic and focus-theoretical investigation of ellipsis in generative grammar. The phenomenon of ellipsis most generally refers to the omission of linguistic material, structure and sound. The central aim of this book is to explain on the basis of linguistic theorizing of how it is possible that we understand more than we actually hear. The answer developed throughout this book is that ellipsis is an interface phenomenon which can only be explained on the basis of the complex interaction between syntax, semantics and information structure.
The still largely mysterious question of how hierarchical linguistic structures are converted into sequentially ordered linear strings is the challenging problem at the heart of this volume. The ten contributions approach it from a range of angles, considering both specific empirical challenges in spoken and signed languages, and broader architectural and typological questions. This volume will be of interest to advanced students and researchers with interests in the externalisation of linguistic structure, the architecture of the language faculty and linguistic typology.
This is not an introduction to the subject of linguistic form, but a brief commentary on current views and terminologies. If it is possible to discover any aim common to all linguistic schools, this aim is the reduction, by terminological devices, of the fundamental asymmetry of linguistic systems. If there are phonemes, allophones and phonemic components, then there must also be morphemes, allomorphs and morphemic components. If there is a form and a substance of the expression, then there must also be a form and a substance of the content.
