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Austronesian languages have long raised interesting questions for generative theories of syntax and morphology. The papers in this volume encompass some of these traditional questions and place them in newer theoretical contexts. Some of the papers also address new issues which add to our understanding of members of this language family on one side and the nature of linguistic theories on the other. There are three broad issues that re-occur throughout the volume - the role and analysis of verbal morphology, the nature of the subject or the topic in these languages, and the interaction of syntax and specificity. The papers in this volume show that as formal theories become more precise, a wider range of language data can be captured, and as the inventory of language data grows, the accuracy of formal linguistic theories improves.
List of contents
The Structure of Inflection in Palauan.- Morphology is Structure: A Malagasy Test Case.- Continuative Aspect and the Dative Clitic in Kambera.- Malagasy Existentials: A Syntactic Account Of Specificity.- The Interaction between Prefix and Root: The Case of Maha- in Malagasy.- Another Look at Tagalog Subjects.- /Raising and the Order of Clausal Constituents in the Philippine Languages.- The Topic and Y Indefinite in Cebuano.- The L-syntax/S-syntax boundary: Evidence from Austronesian.- Indonesian Voice and A-bar Movement.- Object Agreement in Palauan: Specificity, Humanness, Economy and Optimality.- List of Contributors.- Author Index.- Language Index.
Summary
Austronesian languages have long raised interesting questions for generative theories of syntax and morphology. The papers in this volume show that as formal theories become more precise, a wider range of language data can be captured, and as the inventory of language data grows, the accuracy of formal linguistic theories improves.
