Advances in Comparative Germanic Syntax

Book excerpt: The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 21st and 22nd Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop held at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Stuttgart. The contributions provide insightful discussions of several topics of current interest for syntactic theory on the basis of comparative data from a wide range of contemporary and historical Germanic languages. The theoretical issues explored include: the left periphery, with a number of contributions touching on the pros and contras of cartographic accounts; different aspects of word order and how it arises from movement and clause structure; the interplay of thematic relations and case theory with the realization of DPs; and the treatment of finiteness and modal structures. This book is of interest to syntacticians working in a comparative perspective and to advanced undergraduates.