The Routledge Handbook of Syntax

摘要

"The study of syntax has been rife with controversy both within the dominant generative paradigm and among those working in functionalist and related approaches". The only comment I would make on that quotation is that the study of syntax in my student days (admittedly a very long time ago) was never like this. For one thing, of course, my own studies related only to English, Latin and Ancient Greek, while one of the many advances exemplified in this book is the expansion of study across many, mainly living, languages. As usual in these handbooks, we have here an up-to-date and seemingly comprehensive coverage of the current state of specialist knowledge in its subject, in chapters contributed both by established linguistic scholars and by a number of young scholars who are "... doing the most exciting and innovative work in the field". The debates, and presumably controversy, continue here but with the editors' aim in their mixture of contributors of giving "a fresh feel" to the discussions.