Order and Structure in Language. Multidimensional Ordering and Language Design - Denis Delfitto

The book puts forward a new view of the interaction among linear order, labeling and hierarchy in human language. By referring to theories bearing on this issue, including Kayne’s Antisymmetry, Chomsky’s Minimalism, Brody’s Mirror Theory and Cinque’s views on word order generalizations, the volume develops the original insight that hierarchical structure is built from linear order, by defining the relevant Bootstrapping algorithm. It also presents an investigation of some main typological consequences of the theory (in the verbal and nominal domain), original experimental evidence in support of the theory and an extension of the Bootstrapping algorithm to the relation between rhythm and metrical structure in music.

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.