Control, typically defined as a specific referential dependency between the null-subject of a non-finite embedded clause and a co-dependent of the matrix predicate, has been subject to extensive research in the last 50 years. While there is a broad consensus that a distinction between Obligatory Control (OC), Non-Obligatory Control (NOC) and No Control (NC) is useful and necessary to cover the range of relevant empirical phenomena, there is still less agreement regarding their proper analyses. In light of this ongoing discussion, the articles collected in this volume provide a cross-linguistic perspective on central questions in the study of control, with a focus on non-canonical control phenomena. This includes cases which show NOC or NC in complement clauses or OC in adjunct clauses, cases in which the controlled subject is not in an infinitival clause, or in which there is no unique controller in OC (i.e. partial control, split control, or other types of controllers). Based on empirical generalizations from a wide range of languages, this volume provides insights into cross-linguistic variation in the interplay of different components of control such as the properties of the constituent hosting the controlled subject, the syntactic and lexical properties of the matrix predicate as well as restrictions on the controller, thereby furthering our empirical and theoretical understanding of control in grammar.

This book is the first to present a comprehensive theory of non-canonical questions, those question types that do not (only) request information from the addressee, but rather (additionally) tell us something about the speaker's epistemic and/or emotional state, such as can't-find-the-value questions, echo questions, rhetorical questions, and surprise questions. While much recent research has explored the formal semantics and the phonetics and phonology of both canonical and non-canonical questions, the literature is still lacking a comprehensive account from a syntax-pragmatics perspective that brings together the multiple findings and strands of research from the last twenty years. The standard view in the syntax-pragmatics literature is that most special interpretations of non-canonical questions involve syntactic projections at or even above the level of illocutionary force. In this work, Andreas Trotzke argues that this approach is a mistake, and proposes a new alternative theory of non-canonical questions in which both their special pragmatics and their syntax, as well as in many cases their emotive component, can be derived solely from propositional-level operators that do not affect the illocutionary level of utterances and can be found across illocutionary forces. This account dramatically simplifies the syntactic analysis of non-canonical questions and is also able to capture some previously unobserved data in the discourse behavior of those question types.

A novel, systematic theory of adjunct control, explaining how and why adjuncts shift between obligatory and nonobligatory control. Control in adjuncts involves a complex interaction of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, which so far has resisted systematic analysis. In this book, Idan Landau offers the first comprehensive account of adjunct control. Extending the framework developed in his earlier book, A Two-Tiered Theory of Control, Landau analyzes ten different types of adjuncts and shows that they fall into two categories: those displaying strict obligatory control (OC) and those alternating between OC and nonobligatory control (NOC). He explains how and why adjuncts shift between OC and NOC, unifying their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties. Landau shows that the split between the two types of adjuncts reflects a fundamental distinction in the semantic type of the adjunct: property (OC) or proposition (NOC), a distinction independently detectable by the adjunct's tolerance to a lexical subject. After presenting a fully compositional account of controlled adjuncts, Landau tests and confirms the specific configurational predictions for each type of adjunct. He describes the interplay between OC and NOC in terms of general principles of competition--both within the grammar and outside of it, in the pragmatics and in the processing module--shedding new light on classical puzzles in the acquisition of adjunct control by children. Along the way, he addresses a range of empirical phenomena, including implicit arguments, event control, logophoricity, and topicality.

This book focuses on the role size plays in grammar. Under the umbrella term size fall the size of syntactic projections, the size of feature content, and the size of reference sets. The contributions in this first volume discuss size and structure building. The most productive research program in syntax where size plays a central role revolves around clausal complements. Part 1 of Volume I contributes to this program with papers that argue for particular structures of clausal complements, as well as papers that employ sizes of clausal complements to account for other phenomena. The papers in Part 2 of this volume explore the interaction between size and structure building beyond clausal complements, including phenomena in CP, vP, and NP domains. The contributions cover a variety of languages, many of which are understudied. The book is complemented by Volume II which discusses size effects in movement, agreement, and interpretation.

This volume contains a selection of papers dealing with constructions that have a passive-like interpretation but do not seem to share all the properties with canonical passives. The fifteen chapters of this volume raise important questions concerning the proper characterization of the universal properties of passivization and reflect the current discussion in this area, covering syntactic, semantic, psycho-linguistic and typological aspects of the phenomenon, from different theoretical perspectives and in different language families and backed up in most cases by extensive corpora and experimental studies.

This volume brings together a number of researchers working on generative syntax and semantics, language acquisition and phonology to explore various theoretical frameworks, ranging from generative grammar and formal semantics to more descriptive approaches. The contributions gathered here investigate various aspects in the syntax, semantics, phonology and acquisition of Romanian in comparison with other (mainly Romance) languages. The book will be of interest to linguists who are keen on keeping up with the latest advances in the field of Romance studies, as well as those whose research bears on languages such as Hungarian, German, and Maltese, among others.

Passives, middles, and other voice phenomena are issues at the core of modern linguistic research. This volume brings together different perspectives on voice different theoretical viewpoints, different languages, and different kinds of voice phenomena. The eleven articles each make a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion, offering new data, new analyses, and bringing new light to long-standing issues. In combination, they present a multi-faceted and yet coherent picture of the topics at hand.

Research on language universals and research on linguistic typology are not antagonistic, but rather complementary approaches to the same fundamental problem: the relationship between the amazing diversity of languages and the profound unity of language. Only if the true extent of typological divergence is recognized can universal laws be formulated. In recent years it has become more and more evident that a broad range of languages of radically different types must be carefully analyzed before general theories are possible. Typological comparison of this kind is now at the centre of linguistic research. The series empirical approaches to language typology presents a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. The distinctive feature of the series is its markedly empirical orientation. All conclusions to be reached are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. General problems are focused on from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of phenomena from little known languages, which shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics. The series is open to contributions from different theoretical persuasions. It thus reflects the methodological pluralism that characterizes the present situation. Care is taken that all volumes be accessible to every linguist and, moreover, to every reader specializing in some domain related to human language. A deeper understanding of human language in general, based on a detailed analysis of typological diversity among individual languages, is fundamental for many sciences, not only for linguists. Therefore, this series has proven to be indispensable in every research library, be it public or private, which has a specialization in language and the language sciences. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

In some languages every subject is marked in the same way, and also every object. But there are languages in which a small set of verbs mark their subjects or their objects in an unusual way. For example, most verbs may mark their subject with nominative case, but one small set of verbs may have dative subjects, and another small set may have locative subjects. Verbs with noncanonically marked subjects and objects typically refer to physiological states or events, inner feelings, perception and cognition. The Introduction sets out the theoretical parameters and defines the properties in terms of which subjects and objects can be analysed. Following chapters discuss Icelandic, Bengali, Quechua, Finnish, Japanese, Amele (a Papuan language), and Tariana (an Amazonian language); there is also a general discussion of European languages. This is a pioneering study providing new and fascinating data, and dealing with a topic of prime theoretical importance to linguists of many persuasions.

The Handbook of Japanese Contrastive Linguistics is a unique publication that brings together insights from three traditions—Japanese linguistics, linguistic typology and contrastive linguistics—and makes important contributions to deepening our understanding of various phenomena in Japanese as well other languages of the globe. Its primary goal is to uncover principled similarities and differences between Japanese and other languages of the globe and thereby shed new light on the universal as well as language-particular properties of Japanese. The issues addressed by the papers in this volume cover a wide spectrum of phenomena ranging from lexical to syntactic and discourse levels. The authors of the chapters, leading scholars in their respective field of research, present the state-of-the-art research from their respected field.