Postverbal Behavior

by Thomas Wasow

Overview

Compared to many languages, English has relatively fixed word order, but the ordering among phrases following the verb exhibits a good deal of variation. This monograph explores factors that influence the choice among possible orders of postverbal elements, testing hypotheses using a combination of corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments. Wasow's final chapters explore how studies of language use bear on issues in linguistic theory, with attention to the roles of quantitative data and Chomsky's arguments against the use of statistics and probability in linguistics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781575869834
Publisher:	CSLI
Publication date:	01/15/2017
Series:	Lecture Notes , #145
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	199
File size:	1 MB

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Grammatical Weight
3. Information Structure and Weight
4. Additional Factors
5. Theoretical and Metatheoretical Implications
6. Methodological Issues
References
Name Index
Subject Index