The Syntax and Semantics of the Left Periphery (Interface Explorations)

Hardcover, vi + 523 pages, NOT ex-library. Gently used, interior is clean and bright with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps. Issued without a dust jacket. -- This book presents thirteen studies on the structure and interpretation of the left periphery in natural language, with a particular focus on German but incorporating data from Slavic, Romance, and Korean. The contributions address how the left periphery serves as the locus for encoding clause type, illocutionary force, information structure, and sentence mood within the generative grammar framework, especially under cartographic assumptions. The volume aims to consolidate diverse theoretical perspectives on the CP domain by combining syntactic, semantic, typological, and diachronic analyses. Several chapters examine the relationship between clause typing and verbal inflection. Lohnstein and Bredel argue that verbal mood contributes directly to the semantic category of sentence mood, while Meinunger explores how embedded verb-second clauses in German can be anchored as speaker assertions. Obenauer studies the dialect of Pagotto, showing that special wh-questions involve distinct syntactic projections that correspond to alternative discourse readings. Issues of wh-movement, clause typing, and force marking recur throughout the volume. Eden examines wh-phrases in German to propose a compositional model of sentence mood that accounts for variation across questions, relatives, and exclamatives. Brandner links V2 phenomena to the FORCE projection, comparing German with Korean to highlight cross-linguistic parametric variation. Schwabe's analysis of the Slavic particle li demonstrates how a single item may function as a marker of either interrogativity or focus, depending on its structural position. Von Stechow examines how person, tense, and mood features are deleted in embedded clauses under attitude verbs, accounting for de se readings via semantic binding. The left periphery also plays a central role in structuring topical and dislocated constituents. Frey distinguishes German Left Dislocation (GLD) from Hanging Topic Left Dislocation, arguing that GLD uniquely satisfies conditions on recoverability, topic continuity, and syntactic binding. Lutz's discussion of emphatic topicalization and parasitic gaps in southern German varieties provides additional evidence for specialized constructions located in the left periphery. Bayer's contribution offers a decompositional view of the CP field, based on dialectal and typological variation. Other chapters explore complementizer selection and embedded structure. Axel traces the historical development of preposed adverbial clauses in German and their syntactic integration into the left periphery. Wöllstein analyzes how aspect, verb status, and finiteness influence the licensing of German complement clauses. D'Avis investigates the boundary between clause-internal and peripheral adverbial clauses, proposing a parenthetical status for certain adjuncts. While the empirical focus of many chapters remains on German, the volume incorporates evidence from diverse languages to formulate a general architecture of the left periphery. Across the contributions, movement phenomena such as topicalization, wh-fronting, and verb-second placement are examined both in terms of their surface order and their role in encoding structural information related to illocutionary force, clause type, and discourse anchoring. The use of cartographic models, mood theory, and interface diagnostics reveals a consistent interest in how morphosyntactic structure mediates between sentence form and interpretive function. The editors aim to bridge longstanding divides between syntactic and semantic treatments of clause structure. The diversity of the book's case studies underscores the centrality of the left periphery in natural language and affirms its role as a testing ground for cross-linguistic variation, parametric modeling, and interface theory.…