Ever since Chomsky’s Barriers, functional heads have been the privileged object of research in generative linguistics. But over the last two decades, two rival approaches have developed. The cartographic project considers evidence for a functional head in one language as evidence for it in universal grammar. On the other hand, minimalist accounts tend to consider structural economy as literally involving as few heads as possible. In the present volume, some of the most influential linguists who have participated in this long-lasting debate offer their recent work in short, self-contained case ... More

Ever since Chomsky’s Barriers, functional heads have been the privileged object of research in generative linguistics. But over the last two decades, two rival approaches have developed. The cartographic project considers evidence for a functional head in one language as evidence for it in universal grammar. On the other hand, minimalist accounts tend to consider structural economy as literally involving as few heads as possible. In the present volume, some of the most influential linguists who have participated in this long-lasting debate offer their recent work in short, self-contained case studies. The chapters cover all the main layers of recently studied syntactic structure, including such major areas of empirical research such as grammaticalization and language change, standard and non-standard varieties, interface issues, and morphosyntax. This book attempts to map aspects of syntactic structure following the cartographic approach, and in doing so demonstrates that the differences between the cartographic approach and the minimalist approach are more apparent than substantial.