Thinking syntactically: A guide to argumentation and analysis. By Liliane Haegeman. (Blackwell textbooks in linguistics.) Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Pp. xii, 386. ISBN 9781405118538. $43.95.

Reviewed by Asya Pereltsvaig, Stanford University

This book is an introductory textbook in generative syntactic theory. Its declared aim is ‘not to present all the intricacies of one syntactic theory’, but ‘to reconstruct and to illustrate as explicitly as possible the thinking behind generative syntax’ (vi). In this way, the present volume differs from so many other syntactic textbooks on the market that present syntax as ‘a spectator sport’, instead of getting students themselves involved in syntactic thinking. Haegeman leads the students through the maze of building syntactic argumentation. Another aspect that distinguishes this book from many other introductions to generative syntax is the kinds of examples used. Instead of using artificial examples that may seem irrelevant to students of introductory syntax, H uses many attested examples, mostly from journalistic prose. Though the examples are generally drawn from English, data from other languages are presented as well. Each chapter is complete with numerous and detailed exercises. The book also contains a note to the teacher on how this textbook can be used alone or in a sequence of syntax courses.

Ch. 1 offers an introduction to scientific methodology and how it can be applied to the study of syntax. The main hypothesis introduced is that the meaning of a sentence is calculated on the basis of its component parts and their relations in the structure. Moreover, patterns of question formation in English and French are surveyed as well. Ch. 2 introduces the key tools for identifying the constituents of a sentence. It is shown that two of the main constituents of the sentence are its subject and its verb phrase, with the latter being considered a ‘projection’ of the verb. The concept of a lexical projection is introduced here as well. Ch. 3 shows how subject and verb phrase are related through a linking element, the inflection of the verb. Here H introduces the hypothesis that the inflection of the finite verb heads its own projection, and thereby introduces the concept of a functional projection.

Ch. 4 pursues the hypothesis that the meaning of the sentence is worked out on the basis of its component parts and their structural relations. From this hypothesis, H deduces that sentences must have more than one subject position. Hence, H introduces an additional hypothesis that the subject is first inserted inside the VP and then moved to the subject position outside the VP. The fifth and final chapter returns to question formation and shows how the system elaborated in the first four chapters of the book can be implemented to derive the word order in English questions. This chapter focuses on the importance of the movement operation for the formation of sentences.

Overall, this book presents a very refreshing way of teaching introductory syntax courses and fills the void in terms of introductory syntactic textbooks that focus on generative syntax, but do not presuppose much background knowledge of syntax at the outset.