The Verbal Complex in Romance: A Case Study in Grammatical Interfaces: 9 (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)

This book explores the interface between syntax and the other components of the grammar, in particular phonology, morphology, and argument structure. The author proceeds through a consideration of case studies, such as clitics and complex predicates (auxiliary and modal verbs) in Romance, grounding theoretical analysis in constant exemplification. She shows that a careful analysis of their properties can lead to a better understanding of the interaction of the various components of the grammar. The syntactic properties of clitics are considered in relation to their phonological and morphological characteristic. The properties of auxiliary verbs are analysed from the perspective of the interface between argument structure and syntactic structure. Modal verbs are examined at the interface between syntax and phonology. The analyses of clitics and auxiliaries throw interesting new light on the link between Romanian and Balkan/Slavic. This is a valuable contribution to the study of grammatical interfaces and to Romance verbal typology and comparative linguistics.

Paola Monachesi is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Utrecht. She is the author of A Lexical Approach to Italian Cliticization (CSLI, 1999) and co-editor of Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2000 (John Benjamins, 2002) and of the proceedings of Formal Grammar 2003 and Formal Grammar 2004 (CSLI).