The study introduces a novel category of copular sentences called inverse copular sentences, where the noun phrase serves as the predicate and occupies the subject's canonical position. This finding unifies four areas of syntax into a cohesive framework, linking inverse copular sentences with existential sentences, constructions with "seem," and unaccusative forms. Additionally, it addresses classical syntactic issues, offering insights into expletives, locality theory, cliticization, possessive constructions, and cross-linguistic variations of the Definiteness Effect.
The new edition of a pioneering book that examines research at the
intersection of contemporary theoretical linguistics and the cognitive
neurosciences.
Beginning with the early works of Aristotle, the interpretation of the verb to
be runs through Western linguistic thought like Ariadne's thread. As it
unravels, it becomes intertwined with philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and even
with mathematics - so much so that Bertrand Russell showed no hesitation in
proclaiming that the verb to be was a disgrace to the human race. With the
conviction that this verb penetrates modern linguistic thinking, creating
scandal in its wake and, like a Trojan horse of linguistics, introducing
disruptive elements that lead us to rethink radically the most basic structure
of human language - the sentence - Andrea Moro reconstructs this history.
The book presents a collection of papers that explore the growing interconnection between formal syntax and neurolinguistics. Moro highlights how insights from neurolinguistics are increasingly reliant on the theoretical foundations established in formal syntax, suggesting that empirical questions in neurolinguistics can only be fully addressed through this theoretical lens. This work emphasizes the importance of integrating these two domains to advance understanding in both fields.
An investigation into the possibility of impossible languages, searching for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Can there be such a thing as an impossible human language? A biologist could describe an impossible animal as one that goes against the physical laws of nature (entropy, for example, or gravity). Are there any such laws that constrain languages? In this book, Andrea Moro—a distinguished linguist and neuroscientist—investigates the possibility of impossible languages, searching, as he does so, for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Moro shows how the very notion of impossible languages has helped shape research on the ultimate aim of linguistics: to define the class of possible human languages. He takes us beyond the boundaries of Babel, to the set of properties that, despite appearances, all languages share, and explores the sources of that order, drawing on scientific experiments he himself helped design. Moro compares syntax to the reverse side of a tapestry revealing a hidden and apparently intricate structure. He describes the brain as a sieve, considers the reality of (linguistic) trees, and listens for the sound of thought by recording electrical activity in the brain. Words and sentences, he tells us, are like symphonies and constellations: they have no content of their own; they exist because we listen to them and look at them. We are part of the data.
