Syntactic Architecture

Syntactic theory can be viewed as the union of two subtheories: A theory of the configurational properties of syntactic representations (phrase structure), and a theory of how such data structures can be manipulated by syntactic operations (syntactic tran sformations). Our goal is to achieve a higher degree of unification between the two subtheories. We will use the recent developments as a starting point in attempt to create a theory of syntax where most or all of the properties of the transformational component follow from the properties of syntactic representations. The general conclusions emerging from detailed investigation of the formal properties and empirical coverage of recent generative theories of syntax will be put to the test in a fairly re stricted domain, the morphosyntax of OV-languages. We will focus on a sample of OV-languages which will be systematically compared to one another and to the Germanic OV-languages. An important part of the project also involves using data from language c hange & language acquisition to evaluate the explanatory potential of syntactic theories.