Postverbal Behavior
Compared to many languages, English has relatively fixed word order, but the ordering among phrases following the verb exhibits a good deal of variation. This monograph explores factors that influence the choice among possible orders of postverbal elements, testing hypotheses using a combination of corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments. Wasow's final chapters explore how studies of language use bear on issues in linguistic theory, with attention to the roles of quantitative data and...
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Compared to many languages, English has relatively fixed word order, but the ordering among phrases following the verb exhibits a good deal of variation. This monograph explores factors that influence the choice among possible orders of postverbal elements, testing hypotheses using a combination of corpus studies and psycholinguistic experiments. Wasow's final chapters explore how studies of language use bear on issues in linguistic theory, with attention to the roles of quantitative data and Chomsky's arguments against the use of statistics and probability in linguistics.
AcknowledgmentsPreface1Introduction11An Example12Objectives33Some Phenomena Illustrating Order Variation44Questions to be Addressed125Why Only English Data?142Grammatical Weight151Introduction152Proposed Definitions of Weight163Evaluating Characterizations of Weight234Length and Complexity325Explaining Weight Effects42App. AStimuli used in the questionnaire study58App. BVerb-Particle Frequency vs. HNPS Rates603Information Structure and Weight611Introduction612Characterizing the Role of Information Structure in Ordering623Information Structure vs. Grammatical Structure674Additional Factors831Introduction832Semantic Connectedness833Lexical Bias874Ambiguity Avoidance88App. AStimuli from the questionnaire study110App. BStimuli from the ambiguity experiment1135Theoretical and Metatheoretical Implications1151Introduction1152Generative Analyses1163Goals of Syntactic Research1316Methodological Issues1491Introduction1492Simplicity1503Generality1534Coverage156References167Name Index177Subject Index181
