New Benjamins title- Givon/Shibatani: Syntactic Complexity

[Paul Peranteau]

Syntactic Complexity
Diachrony, acquisition, neuro-cognition, evolution
  Edited by T. Givón and Masayoshi Shibatani
University of Oregon / Rice University
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=TSL%2085Typological 
Studies in Language 85

2009. vi, 553 pp.
Hardbound  978 90 272 2999 1 / EUR 110.00 / USD 165.00
Paperback 978 90 272 3000 3 / EUR 36.00 / USD 54.00
e-Book  Not yet available 978 90 272 9014 4 / EUR 110.00 / USD 165.00

Complex hierarchic syntax is considered one of the hallmarks of human 
language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, 
recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a 
special status as the apex of the uniquely-human language 
facultyevolutionary but somehow immune to adaptive selection. This 
volume, coming out of a symposium held at Rice University in March 
2008, tackles syntactic complexity from multiple developmental 
perspectives. We take it for granted that grammar is an adaptive 
instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform 
of pre-linguistic cognition. Most of the papers in the volume deal 
with the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, 
the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning 
synchronic morpho-syntax; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor 
directly responsible for the acquisition of competent grammatical 
performance. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two 
developmental trends is considered alongside with the cognition and 
neurology of grammar and of syntactic complexity, and the 
evolutionary relevance of diachrony, ontogeny and pidginization is 
argued on general bio-evolutionary grounds. Lastly, several of the 
contributions to the volume suggest that recursive embedding is not 
in itself an adaptive target, but rather the by-product of two 
distinct adaptive gambits: the recruitment of conjoined clauses as 
modal operators on other clauses and the subsequent condensation of 
paratactic into syntactic structures.


Table of contents

Introduction
T. Givón 120
Part I. Diachrony
 From nominal to clausal morphosyntax: Complexity via expansion
Bernd Heine 2352
Re(e)volving complexity: Adding intonation
Marianne Mithun 5380
Multiple routes to clause union: The diachrony of complex verb phrases
T. Givón 81118
On the origins of serial verb constructions in Kalam
Andrew Pawley 119144
A quantitative approach to the development of complex predicates: The 
case of Swedish Pseudo-Coordination with sitta "sit"
Martin Hilpert and Christian Koops 145162
Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn't: The case of 
relativization
Masayoshi Shibatani 163198
Nominalization and the origin of subordination
Guy Deutscher 199214
The co-evolution of syntactic and pragmatic complexity: Diachronic 
and cross-linguistic aspects of pseudoclefts
Christian Koops and Martin Hilpert 215238
Two pathways of grammatical evolution
Östen Dahl 239248
Part II. Child language
On the role of frequency and similarity in the acquisition of subject 
and non-subject relative clauses
Holger Diessel 251276
'Starting small' effects in the acquisition of early relative 
constructions in Spanish
Cecilia Rojas-Nieto 277310
The ontogeny of complex verb phrases: How children learn to negotiate 
fact and desire
T. Givón 311388
Part III. Cognition and neurology
Syntactic complexity versus concatenation in a verbal production task
Marjorie Barker and Eric Pederson 391404
The emergence of linguistic complexity
Brian MacWhinney 405432
Cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic complexity
Diego Fernandez-Duque 433460
Neural mechanisms of recursive processing in cognitive and linguistic 
complexity
Don M. Tucker, Phan Luu and Catherine Poulsen 461490
Syntactic complexity in the brain
Angela D. Friederici and Jens Brauer 491506
Part IV. Biology and evolution
Neural plasticity: The driving force underlying the complexity of the brain
Nathan Tublitz 509530
Recursion: Core of complexity or artifact of analysis?
Derek Bickerton 531544
Index  545553


Paul Peranteau (paul at benjamins.com)
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