Language, apart from its cultural and social dimension, has a scientific side that is connected not only to the study of 'grammar' in a more or less traditional sense, but also to disciplines like mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. This book explores developments in linguistic theory, looking in particular at the theory of generative grammar from the perspective of the natural sciences. It highlights the complex and dynamic nature of language, suggesting that a comprehensive and full understanding of such a species-specific property will only be achieved through interdisciplinary work.

This volume features cutting-edge research from leading authorities on the nature and structure of the verbal domain and the complexity of the Verb Phrase (VP). The book is divided into three parts, representing the areas in which contemporary debate on the verbal domain is most active. The first part focuses on the V head, and includes four chapters discussing the setup of verbal roots, their syntax, and their interaction with other functional heads such as Voice and v. Chapters in the second part discuss the need to postulate a Voice head in the structure of a clause, and whether Voice is different from v. Voice was originally intended as the head hosting the external argument in its specifier, as well as transitivity. This section explores its relationship with "syntactic" voice, i.e. the alternation between actives and passives. Part three is dedicated to event structure, inner aspect, and Aktionsart. It tackles issues such as the one-to-one relation between argument structure and event structure, and whether there can be minimal structural units at the basis of the derivation of any sort of XP, including the VP.

A collection of works reflecting on Chomsky's Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, with a foreword by David Pesetsky and a preface by Noam Chomsky.
This volume is a celebration of Aspects’ multifaceted impact on the field of linguistics, and a reflection on some of its leading themes 50 years into the game. As the reader will no doubt notice, the contributions in this volume differ quite significantly, ranging from short remarks to detailed technical analyses.

El objetivo de este libro es proporcionar una visión actualizada de los estudios realizados sobre diversos fenómenos del ámbito de la sintaxis teórica en las últimas décadas. La obra pone, por tanto, especial énfasis en lo que serían "estados de la cuestión" sobre determinados fenómenos que implican el módulo sintáctico.
Los cambios en la teoría sintáctica de las últimas décadas (con marcos teóricos diversos) y el impacto causado por el estudio de las llamadas «interfaces» (léxico, pragmática, morfología y semántica) han propiciado un replanteamiento sobre la naturaleza de muchos aspectos del estudio del lenguaje y sus consecuencias a la hora de analizar estructuras muy determinadas. Este libro pretende ofrecer una perspectiva general de todo ello.
La organización de los capítulos cubre prácticamente todos los módulos de la lengua, divididos en tres grandes bloques/secciones: la primera sección presenta cuestiones relacionadas con la interacción entre el léxico y la sintaxis (categorías gramaticales, estructura argumental, etc.); la segunda se centra en fenómenos sintácticos en sentido estricto (caso, modo, concordancia, etc.), y en la tercera se discuten cuestiones que atañen a fenómenos que conciernen a la interacción entre sintaxis y los componentes que la tradición lingüística ha identificado como independientes: morfología, fonología, semántica y pragmática.

This volume explores and develops the framework of phases (so-called Phase Theory), first introduced in Chomsky (2000). The antecedents of such framework go back to the well-known notion of “cycle”, which concerns broader notions, such as compositionality, locality, and economy conditions. Within generative grammar, this idea of the cycle took a concrete form in the fifties, with Chomsky, Halle, and Lukoff’s (1955) pioneering work on stress, later on extended in Chomsky & Halle (1968), Halle & Vergnaud (1987), and further applied to morpho-phonology (Mascaró 1976 and Kiparski 1982), semantics (Jackendoff 1969), and syntax (Chomsky 1965, 1973). In recent years, several attempts have tried to refine and reformulate the cycle (Freidin 1999, Lasnik 2006, Uriagereka 2011). Such was the goal behind explorations on bounding nodes (Chomsky 1973) and barriers (Chomsky 1986), for which there is substantial empirical evidence showing how computation proceeds in a step-by-step fashion. Much work within minimalism has been devoted to investigate the nature of phases and their relevance for other areas of linguistic inquiry. Although it has been argued that phases have natural correlates at the interfaces, it is still unclear what the defining properties of these domains are, whether they can help us understand language acquisition, language variation, or language evolution. This book aims at addressing these questions, sharpening our understanding about phases and the nature of the Faculty of Language.