The concept of 'trigger' is a core concept of Chomsky's Minimalist
Program. The idea that certain types of movement are triggered by some
property of the target position is at least as old as the notion that
the movement of noun phrases to the subject position is triggered by
their need to receive nominative case. In more recent versions of
syntactic theory, triggering mechanisms are thought to regulate all of
movement. Furthermore, a quite narrow range of triggering mechanisms
is permitted. As is to be expected, such a restrictive approach meets
a variety of difficulties. Specifically, the question is whether all
triggering elements required to cover displacement of all kinds in
natural language can be independently motivated. Further, how can a
trigger theory, which crucially relies on the idea that all movement
is obligatory, deal with apparently optional movement processes? Are
features an adequate means to express the triggering function in all
cases? More radically, are all movement phenomena really the result of
the checking of trigger features? And what about apparent triggering
factors that are 'external' to syntax such as prosody - can they be
captured in a rigid trigger theory? In other words, could certain
aspects of triggered movement be due to interface conditions? Such is
the range of questions addressed by the fourteen contributions to this
book. They cover a considerable range of languages (including
Afrikaans, Breton, Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Gungbe,
Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kiswahili, Romanian). These papers
present materials, both empirical and theoretical, that will not fail
to have considerable impact on the further development of the concept
of trigger in syntactic theory.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9783110197433
Publisert
2015
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
De Gruyter Mouton
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter