Issues In the Syntax of Determiner Phrases in Bangla: (20 Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory)

The book investigates multiple aspects of the patterning of Determiner Phrases (DP) in Bangla and develops a set of proposals to model the underlying syntactic structure of such elements. A broad aspect of this book is to re-assert the existing argument in the DP literature that DPs appear to share a parallel structure to the clauses. The book in particular shows that the Bangla DP-internal phrasal movements are instances of discourse driven phenomena. This further leads to project a fine structure of nominal left-periphery in the Bangla DP, that has been argued in the background of the cross-linguistic evidence drawn from Gungbe, Greek, Albanian, and Russian languages. The central theoretical discussion of the book primarily revolves around the key conceptual domains of adjective movement, ellipsis, definiteness, and wh-movement in the Bangla DP.

Table of Contents:
Editorial Foreword Preface Abbreviations 1 Introduction to DP and Clausal Correspondence  Introduction  1 DP and Clausal Correspondence  1.1 DP Corresponds to IP: Abney (1987)  1.2 DP Corresponds to CP: Szabolcsi (1989)  1.3 DP-Internal Movements  2 DP-Internal “Parameters of Movement”: Cinque (2005) 2 Post-Demonstrative Focus Position in the Bangla Determiner Phrase  Introduction  1 Pre-Demonstrative Focus and Topic Positions in the Bangla DP: Syed (2012)  2 Leftward Movement of the Adjective in the Post-DEM Position in the Bangla DP  3 Cross-Linguistic Evidence for a Post-DET Focus Position  4 Properties of Focus1 and Focus2 in the Bangla DP  5 Summary 3 Topic and Definiteness in the Bangla DP  Introduction  1 Specificity vs. Definiteness Driven NP Movement in the Bangla DP  1.1 Maximality/Inclusiveness Driven NP Movement in the Bangla DP  2 Two Types of Definiteness  2.1 Anaphoric Definites Are Topics in the Bangla DP  2.2 Unique and Anaphoric Definiteness in the Bangla DP  2.3 Deictic and Anaphoric Demonstratives in the Bangla DP  3 Licensing Positions of the Unique and the Anaphoric Definites in the Bangla DP  4 NP Movement to the Topic2 Position  5 Summary 4 Ellipsis in the Bangla DP  Introduction  1 Nominal Ellipsis in the Bangla DP  2 Modifier Ellipsis in the Bangla DP  3 Focalisation of the Non-Elided Adjective in the Bangla DP  3.1 Focus2 Position as the Escape Position of the Non-Elided Adjective in the Bangla DP  4 Nominal Ellipsis in the Post-Numeral Position in the Bangla DP  5 Non-Violation of the AOR in the Ellipsis Context  6 Violation of PIC in the Bangla DP  7 Summary 5 Wh-Movement in the Bangla DP  Introduction  1 kon Moves in the Bangla DP  2 Licensing Position of kon in the Bangla DP  3 The Co-occurrence of the Demonstrative Sei and the wh-Words in Bangla  4 Summary 6 Conclusion  1 Focus Phrases in the Bangla DP  2 Topic Phrases in the Bangla DP  3 Ellipsis in the Bangla DP  4 Wh-Movement in the Bangla DP  4.1 Context: bole Complementizer  4.2 Context: Noun Complement Clause  5 Further Research Questions Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Ambalika Guha is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, and Coordinator of the Centre for Study of Contemporary Theory and Research, Adamas University., Kolkata, India. She has received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. As a syntactician, her primary interest lies in studying the uniformity between nominal and clausal left periphery. Particularly, she investigates the discourse notion which plays a direct role in syntactic derivation. Recently, she has also been intrigued by the semantics of polar questions and alternative questions, showing how a language speaker uses a question particle as a disjunction marker.