Government and binding theory and the minimalist program Ed. by Gert Webelhuth (review)

856LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) The a??-PP in (lb) is not merely topicalized, as one might think, because in verb-subject inversion (cf. Ic) the aan-PP can occur in the postverbal subject position, which may not host topicalized elements. Subjects with 'quirky' case are well-known from Icelandic, but such quirky subject PPs may pose an even greater challenge to some syntactic theories. The individual chapters contain much more that is valuable, but they often remain at a descriptive level. It is to be hoped that the promised second volume (which will bear the subtitle "Theoretical and contrastive studies') will contain more material that allows the reader to see how all the language-particular detail fits into a coherent larger picture. REFERENCES Bybee, Joan L.; Revere D. Perkins; and William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite pronouns (Oxford studies in typology and linguistic theory.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Faculty of Linguistics and Literature University of Bamberg D-96045 Bamberg Germany [martin.haspelmath@split.uni-bamberg.de] Government and binding theory and the minimalist program. Ed. by Gert Webelhuth . Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Pp. ix, 483. Reviewed by Lindsay J. Whaley, Dartmouth College In order to ensure a sufficient degree of cohesion and continuity, cultures require some mechanism for the transmission of shared knowledge and values. This primal need achieves a special degree or urgency in intellectual cultures, such as that subculture in linguistics usually called generative syntax, since there are few bonds holding the community together other than a set of concepts and questions. This book serves the crucial role of passing on the basic lore of generative syntax to the current generation. Given the volume of research relevant to shaping this lore and the advent of the minimalist program, which is reshaping it at a fundamental level, this is a timely and useful book. The editor sets forth the raison d'être for the volume in the introduction (3-14) and explains its organization. The book is intended to serve as a resource guide for graduate students and teachers to the leading ideas of government and binding theory (in the stage of its development often referred to as principles and parameters theory). This is, in fact, an excellent description of how this book can and should be used. It clearly assumes some familiarity with syntax and the generative enterprise, and as such its content will be beyond all but the sharpest undergraduate students. Furthermore, it is self-consciously not a textbook: There are no exercises, no gently paced expositions of core concepts, and no attempts to segment the articles into sections appropriate for assigned reading. For these reasons, this book is not at all comparable to resources such as Cowper (1992), Haegeman (1994), Lasnik and Uriagereka (1988), or Napoli (1993). Neither is it an apologetic for GB or a comparative work. The reader is reminded of certain philosophical underpinnings of the generative culture throughout the book, but even when these metatheoretical assumptions are made explicit, they are only motivated in the most cursory offashions. Moreover, there is no indication of which aspects of this theory of syntax have prompted controversy in the field of linguistics as a whole. This book instead is designed to convey the state of the art of syntactic theorizing from a generative perspective in the early 1990's, and it does so well, mostly thanks to the thoughtful presentation of material orchestrated by the editor. The basic architecture of GB theory is laid REVIEWS857 out in the first five chapters, each of which is dedicated to individual modules or subtheories of the GB framework: Gert Webelhuth, 'X-bar theory and case theory' (15-95), Edwin Williams, 'Theta theory' (97-124), C-T James Huang, 'Logical form' (125-75), Wayne Harbert, 'Binding theory, control and pro' (176-240), and Norbert Hornstein and Amy Weinberg, 'The empty category principle' (241-96). There is a unifying character to these chapters. They begin by identifying the kinds of linguistic phenomena that are relevant to the module under scrutiny and outline how the theory accounts for them. Although the...