The Syntax of Silence by Jason Merchant

The Syntax of Silence by Jason Merchant

A primary goal of contemporary theoretical linguistics is to develop a theory of the correspondence between sound (or gesture) and meaning. This sound-meaning correspondence breaks down completely in the case of ellipsis, and yet various forms of ellipsis are pervasive in natural language: words and phrases which should be in the linguistic signal go missing. How this should be possible is the focus of Jason Merchant's investigation. He focuses on the form of ellipsis known as sluicing, a common feature of interrogative clauses, such as in 'Sally's out hunting - guess what!'; and 'Someone called, but I can't tell you who'. It is the most frequently found cross-linguistic form of ellipsis. Dr Merchant studies the phenomenon across twenty-four languages, and attempts to explain it in linguistic and behavioural terms.

This is the most comprehensive study of Sluicing to date, and clears up one of its central mysteries: how do sluices evade standard island effectsMerchant brings together extensive comparative work with a careful examination of the syntax-semantics interface, and unveils a completely new typology of island effects. This brilliant work will be the touchstone for research on ellipsis and islands for years to come. * Kyle Johnson, University of Massachusetts at Amherst *
This book is a clearly written, very interesting exploration of sluicing. The author presents a number of well argued, novel ideas, and sheds new light on our understanding of a phenomenon linguists have been studying for quite a while. The author has done an excellent job in also providing a thorough overview of previous approaches, and in explaining how his analysis builds on and/or diverges from them. This is definitely a very important contribution to the field. * Anne Lobeck, English Department, Western Washington University *

Jason Merchant is Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, and is the author of many articles on ellipsis and sluicing in particular. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has been a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University and an NWO postdoctoral fellow at the University of Groningen.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780199243730
ISBN 10	0199243735
Title	The Syntax of Silence
Author	Jason Merchant
Series	Oxford Studies In Theoretical Linguistics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2001-08-16
Number of pages	280
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.