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6639 results in Grammar and Syntax

Page 1 of 332

The Cambridge Handbook of Distributed Morphology
  • Morphology after Syntax and Beyond
  • Volume 2
  • Edited by Artemis Alexiadou, Ruth Kramer, Alec Marantz, Isabel Oltra-Massuet
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2026
    Print publication:
    31 December 2026
  • With contributions from a team of renowned scholars, this two-volume Handbook is a comprehensive guide to the Distributed Morphology (DM) framework, providing an overview of all major theoretical issues in morphology. This volume, the second, looks at morphology post-syntax within the Distributed Morphology (DM) framework, exploring its phonological and semantic aspects. It is divided into three parts; Parts I and II focus on morphology post-syntax, exploring its phonological and semantic aspects. Part III broadens the discussion to interfaces between morphology and other areas of linguistics and cognitive science, extending DM's reach well beyond core language components. Each chapter focuses on different theoretical issues, as well as empirical phenomena across a variety of languages. Filling a crucial gap in the domain of morphology, this volume is an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand the depth and scope of Distributed Morphology research.

The Cambridge Handbook of Distributed Morphology
  • Core Components and the Syntax-Morphology Interface
  • Volume 1
  • Edited by Artemis Alexiadou, Ruth Kramer, Alec Marantz, Isabel Oltra-Massuet
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2026
    Print publication:
    31 December 2026
  • With contributions from a team of renowned scholars, this two-volume Handbook is a comprehensive guide to the Distributed Morphology (DM) framework, providing an overview of all major theoretical issues in morphology. This volume, the first, covers the core components of DM, its historical context, and its foundational principles. It is divided into three parts; Part I introduces the basics of DM and compares it with alternative models, Part II delves into the core components of DM, and Part III addresses key issues for the syntax-morphology interface. Each chapter focuses on different theoretical issues, as well as empirical phenomena across a variety of languages. Filling a crucial gap in the domain of morphology, this volume is an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand the depth and scope of Distributed Morphology research.

Language, Imitation and Creativity
  • Dialogic Resonance in Grammar and Pragmatics
  • Vittorio Tantucci
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2026
    Print publication:
    31 July 2026
  • Linguistic imitation is not mere repetition, but is instead a foundational mechanism of language use. It underpins the engagement and categorisation of meaning as a conceptual pact among speakers. This book redefines imitation as the creative engine of human communication, showing how language evolves through our engagement with what others say. It discusses dialogic resonance – the reuse and reshaping of communicative constructions – as a unifying framework that bridges pragmatics and construction grammar. Combining evidence from first and second language acquisition, intercultural communication and neurodiverse interaction, the book highlights the crucial role of imitation in shaping social conformity, engagement, categorisation and innovation. It combines detailed qualitative case studies with innovative corpus-based and statistical analyses to provide new theoretical insights and methodological tools. It is essential reading for scholars and students of linguistics, psychology, education and sociology, and for anyone interested in how language emerges from the creative interplay of human voices.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Minimalist Program
  • Edited by Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Evelina Leivada
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2026
    Print publication:
    30 June 2026
  • The Minimalist Program is a long-established branch of Chomsky's Generative approach to linguistics, which, since its first incarnation in the early 1990s, has become one of the most prominent frameworks for syntax. Bringing together a team of world-renowned scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to current developments in generative syntactic theory. Split into five thematic parts, the chapters cover the historical context and foundations of the program, overviews of the major areas of research within modern syntactic theory, and a survey of the variety of phenomena dealt with within Minimalism through a focus on concepts, primitives, and operations. It offers in-depth perspectives on the core concepts and operations in the Minimalist Program for readers who are not already familiar with it, as well as a complete overview of the state-of-the-art in the field, making it essential reading for both scholars and students in the field.

Language Rules!
  • Secrets of a Uniquely Human Ability
  • Asya M. Pereltsvaig
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    March 2026
    Print publication:
    31 March 2026
  • What are the key design elements of human language? How does it work? What makes it different from how animals communicate and convey information? How did it evolve, biologically speaking? In what respects do animals fail to do what we humans do so effortlessly? Language is a uniquely human trait, but without a degree in linguistics, it is difficult to comprehend how it works. This fascinating book addresses these and related questions in a lively and engaging way, and demonstrates the 'nuts and bolts' of how language actually works. Readers are introduced to key discoveries in the study of language, such as Chomsky's ideas about 'language faculty', and parallels are drawn with well-known issues in science, such as 'flat earth', the nature-nurture debate, and the teaching of language to apes. Language – something so universal to all human experience – is a fascinating cognitive system, and this book explains how, and why.

Beyond Grammar and the Lexicon
  • Indicating and Depicting in Sign Language Discourse
  • Scott K. Liddell
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    March 2026
    Print publication:
    31 March 2026
  • Indicating and depicting are widely understood to be fundamental, meaningful components of everyday spoken language discourse: a speaker's arms and hands are free to indicate and depict because they do not articulate words. In contrast, a signer's arms and hands do articulate signs. For this reason, linguists studying sign languages have overwhelmingly concluded that signers do not indicate and depict as a part of signed articulations. This book demonstrates that signers do, however, indicate - by incorporating non-lexical gestures into their articulations of individual signs. Fully illustrated throughout, it also shows that signers create depictions in numerous ways through conceptualizations, in which the hands, other parts of the body, and parts of the space ahead of the signer depict things. By establishing that indicating and depicting are also fundamental, meaningful aspects of sign language discourse, this book is essential reading for researchers and students of sign linguistics and gesture studies.
Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change

Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change
  • Graeme Trousdale, Elizabeth Closs Traugott
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • The topic of linguistic networks unites different frameworks in cognitive linguistics. This Element explores two approaches to networks, specifically Construction Grammar of the Goldberg variety and Word Grammar as developed by Hudson, and how they inform work on language change. Both are usage-based theories, but while the basic units of Construction Grammar are conventionalized form-meaning pairings gathered in a construct-i-con, the basic units of Word Grammar are words in dependency and other relations. Construction Grammar allows for schematic, hierarchized abstract generalizations attributable to social groups, whereas Word Grammar focuses on relations at the micro-level and attributable primarily to individuals. Consequences of the differences are discussed with reference to perspectives on the diachronic development of causal connectives in English, especially because.

Comparing Syntax
  • An Introduction to Formal Language Typology
  • Ian Roberts
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • A thorough introduction to formal syntactic typology by a leader in the field, Comparing Syntax systematically covers syntactic variation across languages. The textbook covers word-order parameters, null subjects, polysynthesis, verb-movement, ergativity, interrogatives and negation within a comparative framework, ensuring that readers are able to engage with the key topics in the most up-to-date primary research literature. The comprehensive glossary, end-of-chapter exercises and annotated further reading lists allow readers to consolidate and extend their knowledge as they progress through the book. A self-contained work ideal for intermediate and advanced-level students, Comparing Syntax also builds on the author's Beginning Syntax and Continuing Syntax.

The Acquisition of Relativization
  • Barbara Lust, Suzanne Flynn, Claire Foley, Charles R. Henderson, Jr., James W. Gair
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026
  • How does a biologically-programmed language faculty interact with language experience in the acquisition of language across the world? Bringing together linguistic theory, language typology, and cross-linguistic experimental results from parallel studies of development in language acquisition, this book reports new research on the nature of the human competence for language acquisition. It investigates the acquisition of complex sentence formation through relativization -a fundamental component of language knowledge- through systematic, formally explicit, hypothesis-driven experimental studies from English, French and Tulu (in the US, Belgium and India). It demonstrates that across languages, the course of acquisition shares basic properties in keeping with universals of a language faculty, while at the same time, in all languages, specific relativization forms are achieved through development. The results show the power of an approach to the study of language acquisition which bridges linguistic theory of Universal Grammar with real-time creation of a specific language by the child.

Voice and Argument Structure in Basque
  • Ane Berro, Beatriz Fernández
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • Basque is a language of central importance to linguists because it is a 'language isolate,' a rare type of language that is typologically 'alone' and cannot be classified as a part of any language family. Language isolates remain somewhat a mystery, and this book aims to provide an important piece of the puzzle, by both exploring the structure of Basque and shedding new light on its unique place within the languages of the world. It meticulously examines various properties of Basque, including the alignment of intransitive verbs, the introduction of dative arguments, the nature of psych predicates, the causative/inchoative alternation, impersonals, and morphological causatives. By doing so, it presents a comprehensive overview of Basque's intricacies within the realm of argument structure alternations and voice. In its final chapter, it provides an introduction to potential formal analyses of the topics discussed, paving the way for future research in the field. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
  • Edited by Sjef Barbiers, Norbert Corver, Maria Polinsky
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    04 September 2025
  • Bringing together a globally representative team of scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of comparative syntax, the study of universal and variable properties of the structure of building blocks in natural language. Divided into four thematic parts, it covers the various theoretical and methodological approaches to syntactic variation; explores dependency relations and dependency marking; shows how the building blocks of syntax both vary and display universal properties across languages, and explores the interfaces between syntax and other aspects of language structure. It also includes examples from a typologically broad range of languages, as well as data from child language, sign language, language processing, and diachronic syntax, giving a clear picture of the ubiquity of cross-linguistic variation. It serves as a source of inspiration for future research, and forges a deeper understanding of the variant and invariant parts of language, making it essential reading for researchers and students in linguistics.

Non-Canonical English Syntax
  • Concepts, Methods, and Approaches
  • Edited by Sven Leuckert, Teresa Pham
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    28 August 2025
  • The term non-canonical syntax generally refers to deviations from 'typical' word order. These represent a fascinating phenomenon in natural language use. With contributions from a team of renowned scholars, this book presents a range of case-studies on non-canonical syntax across historical, register-based, and non-native varieties of English. Each chapter investigates a different non-canonical construction and assesses to what extent it can be called 'non-canonical' in a theory-based and frequency-based understanding of non-canonical syntax. A range of state-of-the-art methodologies are used, highlighting that an empirical approach to non-canonical syntactic constructions is particularly fruitful. An introduction, a synopsis, a terminological chapter, and three section introductions frame the case studies and present overviews of the theory behind non-canonical syntax and previous work, while also illustrating open questions and opportunities for future research. The volume is essential reading for advanced students of English grammar and researchers working on non-canonical syntax and syntactic variation. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Syntactic Variation from Individuals to Populations
  • Language as a Complex System
  • Jonathan Dunn
  • Published online:
    22 December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 January 2026
  • This Element presents a computational theory of syntactic variation that brings together (i) models of individual differences across distinct speakers, (ii) models of dialectal differences across distinct populations, and (iii) models of register differences across distinct contexts. This computational theory is based in Construction Grammar (CxG) because its usage-based representations can capture differences in productivity across multiple levels of abstraction. Drawing on corpora representing over 300 local dialects across fourteen countries, this Element undertakes three data-driven case-studies to show how variation unfolds across the entire grammar. These case-studies are reproducible given supplementary material that accompanies the Element. Rather than focus on discrete variables in isolation, we view the grammar as a complex system. The essential advantage of this computational approach is scale: we can observe an entire grammar across many thousands of speakers representing dozens of local populations.

  • 12 - Recombination, Feature Pool, and Population Structure

  • Edited by Salikoko S. Mufwene, University of Chicago, Enoch O. Aboh, University of Amsterdam
  • Book:
    Uniformitarianism in Language Speciation
    Published online:
    10 December 2025
    Print publication:
    18 December 2025, pp 450-482

  • Summary

    The chapter argues that theories of grammaticalization as an independent unidirectional development of a lexical item into a functional item are misleading. Adopting a uniformitarian perspective, he submits that change involves three interrelated factors: The first, the process of recombination, refers to an innate human cognitive capacity which allows speaker/signer-learners (SL) to select specific linguistic features and recombine them into new syntactic variants. The second represents the feature pool of the variants to which SLs are exposed through contact; they are subject to the process of competition and selection. The third, commonly referred to as grammaticalization, has to do with population factors which may favor or hinder the spread of specific variants across a speech community.

    Contrary to this approach based on universal multilingualism and contact as cornerstones of acquisition and change (Aboh 2015, 2020), classic examples of grammaticalization are particularly misleading because they aggregate different populations of different SL profiles as if they involved homogeneous monolingual or monomodal communities living in identical ecologies. Likewise, commonly used notions such as language-internal vs. contact-induced change become obsolete because they conceive of contact as the exceptional case. The author shows that language change is always the result of contact.

  • 4 - Why No French Creole nor Pidgin Developed in West Africa

  • Edited by Salikoko S. Mufwene, University of Chicago, Enoch O. Aboh, University of Amsterdam
  • Book:
    Uniformitarianism in Language Speciation
    Published online:
    10 December 2025
    Print publication:
    18 December 2025, pp 148-198

  • Summary

    Applying historical ethnography, the chapter demonstrates that the nature of the interactions between Africans and the French along the West African coast from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries did not favor the development of either a French-based creole or a pidgin. When the first French traders arrived in West Africa they capitalized on the century-long trade routes and social networks established by the Portuguese. They formed partnerships with powerful female commercial partners, who acted as language and cultural brokers between African and French traders. Over time, trading practices evolved from direct exchanges requiring mutual language learning to the emergence of professional interpreters, making it less necessary for the trading partners to learn each other’s language. By the eighteenth century, the French engaged in military conquests. The nature of interactions between African recruits and French officers and the types of population structures in which the former were inserted, did not favor the emergence of a pidgin-like variety identified in creolistics as Français Tirailleur. A detailed analysis of some of the grammatical structures of this putative variety suggests that Français Tirailleur was likely fabricated by those who described or quoted it in their books.

Page 1 of 332