The Syntax of Aspect

Nomi Erteschik-Shir is Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. Her publications include The Dynamics of Focus Structure (1997). She is writing The Syntax-Discourse Interface: Information Structure (forthcoming in Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology).Tova Rapoport is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. She is currently working on a theory of syntax-driven interpretation, including a book with Nomi Erteschik-Shir on the lexicon-syntax interface, The Atoms of Meaning.

an important contribution to the literature on aspect, argument mapping and interpretation, and the interface between the lexicon and the syntax ... this volume offers important insights into the structural and semantic underpinnings of the temporal and thematic properties of predicates, which take into account and are founded on a wealth of data from a range of languages.

• 1 FROM LEXICAL ROOTS TO SYNTAX ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Aspect and the Syntax of Argument Structure ; 3. How do Verbs Get their Names? Denominal Verbs, Manner Incorporation and the Ontology of Verb Roots in English ; 4. Path Predicates ; 2 EVENT STRUCTURE AND FEATURE PROJECTIONS ; 5. Tense, Person, and Transitivity ; 6. Complex Aspectual Structure in Hindi/Urdu ; 7. The Aspect of Agency ; 8. Agents and Causes in Malagasy and Tagalog ; 9. Event Structure and Morphosyntax in Navajo ; 3 LEXICAL RESTRICTIONS ON SYNTAX ; 10. Constructions, Lexical Semantics and the Correspondence Principle: Accounting for Generalizations and Subregularities in the Realization of Arguments ; 11. Unspecified Arguments in Episodic and Habitual Sentences ; 12. Resultatives under the 'Event-Argument Homomorphism' Model of Telicity ; 13. Change of State Verbs: Implications for Theories of Argument Projection ; References