Michelle Sheehan – författare

What is grammar? Why does it exist? What difference, if any, does it make to the organization of meaning? This book seeks to give principled answers to these questions. Its topic is 'universal' grammar, in the sense that grammar is universal to human populations. But while modern generative grammar stands in the tradition of 'Cartesian linguistics' as emerging in the 17th century, this book re-addresses the question of the grammatical in a broader historical frame, taking inspiration from Modistic and Ancient Indian philosopher-linguists to formulate a different and 'Un-Cartesian' programme in linguistic theory. Its core claim is that the organization of the grammar is not distinct from the organization of human thought. This sapiens-specific mode of thought is uniquely propositional: grammar, therefore, organizes propositional forms of reference and makes knowledge possible. Such a claim has explanatory power as well: the grammaticalization of the hominin brain is critical to the emergence of our mind and our speciation. A thoroughly interdisciplinary endeavour, the book seeks to systematically integrate the philosophy of language and linguistic theory. It casts a fresh look at core issues that any philosophy of (universal) grammar will need to address, such as the distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning, the significance of part of speech distinctions, the grammar of reference and deixis, the relation between language and reality, and the dimensions of cross-linguistic and bio-linguistic variation.

What is grammar? Why does it exist? What difference, if any, does it make to the organization of meaning? This book seeks to give principled answers to these questions. Its topic is 'universal' grammar, in the sense that grammar is universal to human populations. But while modern generative grammar stands in the tradition of 'Cartesian linguistics' as emerging in the 17th century, this book re-addresses the question of the grammatical in a broader historical frame, taking inspiration from Modistic and Ancient Indian philosopher-linguists to formulate a different and 'Un-Cartesian' programme in linguistic theory. Its core claim is that the organization of the grammar is not distinct from the organization of human thought. This sapiens-specific mode of thought is uniquely propositional: grammar, therefore, organizes propositional forms of reference and makes knowledge possible. Such a claim has explanatory power as well: the grammaticalization of the hominin brain is critical to the emergence of our mind and our speciation. A thoroughly interdisciplinary endeavour, the book seeks to systematically integrate the philosophy of language and linguistic theory. It casts a fresh look at core issues that any philosophy of (universal) grammar will need to address, such as the distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning, the significance of part of speech distinctions, the grammar of reference and deixis, the relation between language and reality, and the dimensions of cross-linguistic and bio-linguistic variation.

This book considers the implications of cross-linguistic word-order patterns for linguistic theory. One of the salient results of Joseph Greenberg's pioneering work in language typology was the notion of a 'harmonic' word-order type, whereby if the verb appears at the left or right edge of the verb phrase, other heads (e.g. prepositions, nouns) also tend to do so. Today, however, there is recognition in both the typological and generative literature that very many, and possibly even the majority of languages, fail to be fully harmonic in the sense that all head-complement pairs pattern alike. But does this imply limitless variation? The chapters in this volume, written by international scholars, discuss the issues arising from this basic question, drawing on data from typologically distinct disharmonic languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Basque, Mócheno (a Tyrolean variety spoken in Northern Italy), French, English, Hixkaryana (a Cariban language), Khalkha Mongolian, Uyghur Turkic, and Afrikaans.The volume begins with a substantial introduction to the study of word order and its relation to linguistic theory. It is then divided into sections on the nature of disharmony; the role of prosody; the question of Antisymmetry and novel alternatives to Antisymmetry; and the Final-over-Final Constraint. Aside from introducing new empirical findings, the volume also offers a range of new perspectives on disharmonic word orders, the status of word order in linguistic theory, and theoretical accounts of typological gaps.

Parametric variation in linguistic theory refers to the systematic grammatical variation permitted by the human language faculty. Although still widely assumed, the parametric theory of variation has in recent years been subject to re-evaluation and critique. The Null Subject Parameter, which determines among other things whether or not a language allows the suppression of subject pronouns, is one of the best-known and most widely discussed examples of a parameter. Nevertheless its status in current syntactic theory is highly controversial. This book is a defence of the parametric approach to linguistic variation, set within the framework of the Minimalist Program. It discusses syntactic variation in the light of recent developments in linguistic theory, focusing on issues such as the formal nature of minimalist parameters, the typology of null-subject language systems and the way in which parametric choices can be seen to underlie the synchronic and diachronic patterns observed in natural languages.