Hubert Haider

The syntax of German

What do you know, if you know that a language has ‘Object Verb’ (OV) structure rather than ‘Verb Object’ (VO)? Answering this question and many others, this book provides an essential guide to the syntactic structure of German. It examines the systematic differences between German and English, which follow from this basic difference in sentence structure, and presents the main results of syntactic research on German. Topics covered include the strict word order in VO vs word order variation in OV, verb clustering, clause union effects, obligatory functional subject position, and subject–object asymmetries for extractions. Through this, a cross-model and cross-linguistic comparison evolves, highlighting the immediate implications for non-Germanic OV languages, and creating a detailed and comprehensive description of the syntactic differences that immediately follow from an OV type in contrast with a VO type like English. It will be of value to all those interested in syntax and Germanic languages.

Adverb placement-convergence of structure and licensing

This contribution addresses the following issues: i) the structural identification of adverb positions (adjoined, embedded or in Spec-positions); ii) interface conditions for adverbs (syntax-semantic interface); iii) serialization patterns of adverbs (post- vs. pre-head order). First, it is argued that important empirical generalizations are missed if adverbials are assigned to spec-positions of functional heads. This paper defends the claim that non-selected adverbials are either adjoined or embedded, depending on the relation to the head of the containing phrase: They are adjoined if they precede the head of the containing phrase. They are embedded if they follow the head of the containing phrase. Second, the relative order of adverbials is characterized as an interface effect of the mapping of syntactic domains on type domains in the structure of the semantic representation. Third, the differences in the pre- and post-head serialization patterns of adverbials that apparently support an adjunction analysis are reconciled with an embedding analysis.

As a matter of facts : comments on Featherston's sticks and carrots

Abstract It is easy to agree and equally easy to disagree with the two main positions of Sam Featherston, respectively, namely, that grammar theory would benefit from improving standards of data assessment, and, that syntactic well-formedness is inherently gradient rather than dichotomist. I subscribe to the first position and I see good grounds for not subscribing to the second claim. Since the two positions are dependent, denying the second has implications for accepting the first.

Extended phases & beheaded phrases Comments on Marcel den Dikken's ‘Phase Extension’

Abstract Phrases cease to be phases once the head raises out of the phrase. This is a clear claim. So, in the simplest case, one would expect a direct correlation between overt head-movement and phrasal transparency properties for extraction constructions in typical cases of head-movement, as for instance V movement.