Mereological Syntax by David Adger
An argument for replacing Chomsky's set-theoretic Merge view of syntax with a theory of syntax based on mereological objects.Mereology is the study of parthood-what it means for one thing to be part of another. David Adger argues that a theory of syntax based on mereological objects should replace Chomsky's set-theoretic Merge view of syntax. He shows how this new perspective solves some of the problems that have bedeviled minimalism, while opening a path to a unified approach to islands, one of the central topics in theoretical syntax for the past 50 years. Adger draws on data from across many languages and from experimental work.
Adger focuses on two puzzles-specifically, the so-called Labeling Problem and Copy Problem-that arise from the Merge model of syntax. He adapts ideas from mereology to build a system of phrase structure, using an operation he calls Subjoin, that solves these puzzles. He defines a simple constraint on mereological objects that he calls Angular Locality, which has wide-ranging ramifications for what constitutes a possible structure, derives successive cyclicity as a theorem, and opens a new approach to explaining why certain island phenomena behave as they do.
- Anaphora and Language Design
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When Arguments Merge
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A Theory of Indexical Shift
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Linearization of Chains and Sideward Movement
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Principles of Argument Structure
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Relativized Minimality
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Indefinite Objects
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Impossible Persons
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Voice and v
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Prosody, Focus, and Word Order
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Features of Person
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The Syntax of Adjectives
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Mathematical Structure of Syntactic Merge
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Indefinites
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The Final-Over-Final Condition
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Morphology by Itself
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Situations and Syntactic Structures
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Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories
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(Re)labeling
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Restriction and Saturation
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Composing Questions
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Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure
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The Antisymmetry of Syntax
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The Architecture of the Language Faculty
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Argument Structure
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Agreement Beyond Phi
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A Two-Tiered Theory of Control
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Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding
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Barriers
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780262553278 |
| ISBN 10 | 0262553279 |
| Title | Mereological Syntax |
| Author | David Adger |
| Series | Linguistic Inquiry Monographs |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | MIT Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2025-11-18 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |