Syntactic case and morphological case in the history of English (review)

Abstract

146LANGUAGE, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 1 (1990) against the facts of Quechua. Even specialists in the Government-Binding approach will probably find some of the authors' allusions obscure. Finally, I found the book somewhat difficult to read. The overall structure of the argument is logical, but it can be hard to follow because of the amount of detail and because of the authors' frequent use of forward and backward references. The authors' language is abstract and vague in places—I am still not sure exactly what a 'Comp-like Case Position' is, for example. The book contains many charts, lists, tables, and diagrams; some are very helpful summaries , but others would be more useful with fuller explanation. There is also an index of names and a short subject index at the end. The book is rather sloppily printed: most of the mistakes are merely distracting (e.g., the first projection of N sometimes shows up as N' and sometimes as N'), but some interfere with comprehension (e.g., the branches of the trees do not always match up accurately with their terminals). In spite of the book's stylistic difficulties and the fact that the analysis it presents is not always completely satisfying (whose is?), the patient reader will be rewarded with a wealth of data, interesting descriptive generalizations, good examples of how to apply formal categories in an 'exotic language', and many suggestive theoretical ideas. REFERENCES Baker, Mark. 1985. Syntactic affixation and English gerunds. Proceedings of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 4, ed. by J. Goldberg, S. MacKaye and M. Wescoat, 1-11. Stanford: Stanford Linguistics Association. Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Emonds, Joseph. 1988. The autonomy of the (syntactic) lexicon and syntax: Insertion conditions for derivational and inflectional morphemes. Seattle: University of Washington, ms. Marantz, Alec. 1979. Assessing the X' convention: Embedded sentences in English. Cambridge, MA: MIT, ms. Milsark, G. L. 1988. Singl-z'ng. Linguistic Inquiry 19.611-34. Reuland, Eric. 1983. Governing -ing. Linguistic Inquiry 14.101-36. Department of Linguistics[Received 9 August 1989.] McGiIl University 1001 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal PQ H3A 1G5 Canada Syntactic case and morphological case in the history of English. By Ans van Kemenade. Dordrecht: Foris, 1987. Pp. xi, 249. $23.90. Reviewed by Cynthia L. Allen, Australian National University This doctoral dissertation is an investigation, in a Government-Binding framework, into the workings of the abstract case-marking system in Old English (OE), and how changes in this abstract system in Middle English (ME) resulted in surface changes. The author argues that superficially unrelated facts, synchronic and diachronic, are in fact related when this abstract system is properly understood. REVIEWS147 Ch. 1 is a general introduction and review of the literature. In Ch. 2, Kemenade argues for an analysis of basic OE syntax similar to analyses which have been proposed in a GB framework for Dutch and German. Specifically, it is assumed that Old English had an underlying word order—SOV—which is obscured by the movement of the verb into second position in main clauses, and also by a fairly free process of extraposition in all clause types. The 'verbsecond ' phenomenon is explained in terms of lexicalization of infl. Infl must be lexicalized; in subordinate clauses this is accomplished by the use of a complementizer, and the verb remains in final position. But in main clauses, if infl is to be lexicalized, the verb must move into infl, which is in second position. However, K argues, it is not in S but in S'. Comp is not filled by a complementizer, but, in line with widely-accepted GB analyses of other Germanic languages, it is the position of topicalized items, including the subject in SVO sentences. This initial Topic position is not available in subordinate clauses, although K never explains this fact. In this chapter K presents an analysis in which both this topic position and infl are dominated by comp, but in Ch. 3 this structure is modified as follows (note: infl" = S'): (1)infl" COMPINFL ( = spec infl') infl Thus, comp is now solely occupied by a Topic position, and is the specifier of infl'. In Ch. 3 K considers...