TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

The volume assembles eleven articles presenting a linguistic approach to the grammar of German, English and the diachronic forerunners of English. Common to all is a theoretical discussion against the background of Chomskyan minimalism (1993) and more recent developments of it (Kayne 1993, Chomsky 1995), all of which make language typology comparisons an interesting proposition. Some of the articles are critical of certain aspects of these theoretical approaches. For all their claims to descriptive universality, it transpires that they fail to address a number of features specific to German.

This selection of papers presented at the 20th Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop brings together contributions that address issues in syntactic predication and studies in the nominal system, as well as papers on data from the history of English and German. Showing a strong comparative commitment, the contributions include studies on previously neglected data on case and predicative structures in Icelandic and other Germanic languages, on the (non-)syntactic distinction of predicative vs. argument NP/DPs, on quirky V2 in Afrikaans, the pronominal system, resumptive pronouns with relative clauses in Zurich German, as well as historical papers on word-formation processes, on auxiliary selection in relation to counter factuality, and on the development of VO-OV orders in the history of English. This volume presents a wide range of studies that enrich both the theoretical understanding and the empirical foundation of comparative research on the Germanic languages.

O. THE CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME AND THE FIELD OF COMPARATIVE GERMANIC SYNTAX Comparati ve synchronic and diachronic syntax has become an increasingly popular and fruitful research area over the past 10-15 years. A central reason for this is that recent developments in linguistic theory have made it possible to formulate explicit and testable hypotheses concerning syntactic universals and cross-linguistic varia- tion. Here we refer to the so-called "Principles-and-Parameters" approaches (see Chomsky 1981a, 1982, 1986a, and also Williams 1987, Freidin 1991, Chomsky and Lasnik 1993, and references cited in these works). It may even be fair to say that the Government-Binding framework (first outlined by Chomsky 1981b)-a spe- cific instantiation of the Principles-and-Parameters approach-has been more influential than any other theoretical syntactic framework. Since 1984, syntacticians investigating the formal properties of Germanic languages have, as an international effort, organized "workshops" on comparative Germanic syntax. The first was held at the University of Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway (1984), the second at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland (1985), the third at the University of Abo in Abo, Finland (1986), the fourth at McGill University, Montreal, Canada (1987), the fifth in Groningen, The Nether- lands (1988), the sixth in Lund, Sweden (1989), the seventh in Stuttgart, Germany (1991), the eighth in Troms, Norway (1992), the ninth at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA (1994), the tenth at the Catholic University in Brussels, Belgium (1995), and the eleventh at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA (1995).

This volume presents a collection of articles reporting on new research carried out within the theoretical framework of generative grammar on the comparative syntax of the Germanic languages. Divided in four main sections, the book focuses on issues of subordination and complementation (with emphasis on German/Dutch and Danish), displacement phenomena discussed in relation with richness of morphology (with special attention to English, German/Dutch, and Norwegian, as well as presenting more general discussion of the issue), language variation and change (studying historical English syntax and Frisian contact dialects), and the syntax-semantics interface viewed from a Germanic perspective (addressing ellipsis, reflexivity, and the behavior of quantifiers).

This volume contains ten revised and expanded papers selected from the dozens presented at the last Michigan-Berkeley Germanic Linguistics Roundtable, five contributions each from syntax (by Werner Abraham, Sarah Fagan, Isabella Barbier, John te Velde, and Ruth Lanouette) and historical linguistics (by Garry Davis and Gregory Iverson, Mary Niepokuj, Neil Jacobs, Edgar Polomé, and David Fertig). The authors start from current theoretical discussions in syntactic and diachronic research, using theory to address longstanding but still current problems in Germanic linguistics, from clitic placement and verb-second phenomena through the Verschärfung to the Twaddellian view of umlaut. Each contribution relies on careful sifting of data situated in the relevant comparative context, Germanic, Indo-European and cross-linguistic.

The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 21st and 22nd Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop held at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Stuttgart. The contributions provide insightful discussions of several topics of current interest for syntactic theory on the basis of comparative data from a wide range of contemporary and historical Germanic languages. The theoretical issues explored include: the left periphery, with a number of contributions touching on the pros and contras of cartographic accounts; different aspects of word order and how it arises from movement and clause structure; the interplay of thematic relations and case theory with the realization of DPs; and the treatment of finiteness and modal structures. This book is of interest to syntacticians working in a comparative perspective and to advanced undergraduates.

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This book is an introduction to the syntactic structures that can be found in the Germanic languages. The analyses are couched in the framework of HPSG light, which is a simplified version of HPSG that uses trees to depict analyses rather than complicated attribute value matrices. The book is written for students with basic knowledge about case, constituent tests, and simple phrase structure grammars (advanced BA or MA level) and for researchers with an interest in the Germanic languages and/or an interest in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar/Sign-Based Construction Grammar without having the time to deal with all the details of these theories.