Symmetry Breaking in Syntax and the Lexicon

Download or read book Symmetry Breaking in Syntax and the Lexicon written by Leah S. Bauke and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a research monograph that explores the implications of the strongest minimalist thesis from an antisymmetric perspective. Three empirical domains are investigated: nominal root compounds in German and English, nominal gerunds in English and their German counterparts, and small clauses in Russian and English. A point of symmetry that has the potential of stalling the derivation emerges in the derivation of all of these constructions. Building on certain assumptions on how Merge works, this book shows that the points of symmetry can all be resolved in the same way; despite the fact that the three empirical domains under investigation are standardly derived from distinct structural configurations, such as head-head merger in the case of root compounds, head-phrase merger as it arises from standard complementation/predication structures for nominal gerunds, and phrase-phrase merger in small clauses. This book is of interest to all researchers working on syntax and its interfaces.