An Introduction to Syntax

by Robert D. van Valin, Jr

Overview

Clearly organized and accessible, this comprehensive new textbook provides students with a thorough grounding in the analysis of syntactic structure using data from a typologically wide variety of languages. The book guides students through the basic concepts involved in syntactic analysis and goes on to prepare them for further work in any syntactic theory, using examples from a range of phenomena in human languages. It also includes a chapter on theories of syntax. Each chapter includes generous exercises and recommendations for further study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521631990
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/26/2001
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	7.13(w) x 10.04(h) x 0.83(d)
Lexile:	1310L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

List of figures; Preface; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 1. Syntax, lexical categories and morphology; 2. Grammatical relations; 3. Dependency relations; 4. Constituent structure; 5. Grammar and lexicon; 6. Theories of syntax; References; Language index; Subject index.

Editorial Reviews

"...it is a great success. The book is well organised and clearly written. It gives both general knowledge and a bird-eye view of the current syntactic research; it also addresses many particular syntactic problems.... VV's Introduction is an excellent guide for any student of syntax, including the beginners, but can also be used by syntacticians as a very convenient conspectus. It illustrates the main aspects of syntactic analysis with data from typologically diverse languages; the clear presentation helps a lot in understanding the most complicated syntactic problems. It is highly recommended as a textbook for any student in linguistics, and as a summary of achievements, trends, and problems in modern syntactic theory." Canadian Journal of Linguistics

From the Publisher