The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface

by Artemis Alexiadou (Editor), Elena Anagnostopoulou (Editor), Martin Everaert (Editor)

Overview

The phenomenon of unaccusativity is a central focus for the study of the complex properties of verb classes. The Unaccusative Hypothesis has provided a rich context for debating whether syntactic behavior is semantically or lexically determined, the consequence of syntactic context, or a combination of these factors. No consensus has been reached. This book combines new approaches to the subject with several papers that have achieved a significant status, though formally unpublished.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199257652
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/11/2004
Series:	Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics , #5
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

University of Stuttgart

University of Crete

Nijmegen University

Table of Contents

Series editors' preface
Introduction, Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou and Martin Everaert
1. A Semantics for unaccusatives and its syntactic consequences, Gennaro Chierchia
2. Unaccusativity as telicity checking, Angeliek van Hout
3. Unergative adjectives and psych-verbs, Hans Bennis
4. Voice morphology in the causative-inchoative alternation: evidence for a non unified structural analysis of unaccusatives, Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou
5. Unaccusative syntax and verbal alternations, David Embick
6. Against an unaccusative analysis of reflexives, Tanya Reinhart and Tal Siloni
7. Unaccusatives and anticausatives in German, Markus Steinbach
8. Syntactic unaccusativity in Russian, Maaike Schoorlemmer
9. Gradience at the lexicon-syntax interface: evidence from auxiliary selection, Antonella Sorace
10. Unaccusativity in Saramaccan: the syntax of resultatives, Tonjes Veenstra
11. The grammar machine, Hagit Borer
12. Acquiring unaccusativity: a cross-linguistic look, Janet Randall, Angeliek van Hout, Juergen Weissenborn and Harald Baayen
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a very valuable volume on the topic of unaccusativity. The editors have introduced expertly the volume, the phenomenon, and its analyses." —Language

"Despite the very high standard of the papers, the volume reads easily, is well-organized, coherent, user-friendly and consistent. It is convincingly challenging, high in the quality and interest of each chapter and complete in the sense it addresses all the questions it was designed for."—Linguist List

From the Publisher