Reviewed by Fredrik Heinat, Sweden

This book contains fourteen of Teun Hoekstra’s papers, some previously unpublished, some coauthored, and some translated into English. The articles were written over a span of approximately twenty years. The consequence is that, although the overall framework is generative, the early articles gear more towards government and binding, whereas the later ones gear towards minimalism (1995-style). The book is divided into four sections: argument structure, tense (T)-chains, the morphosyntax of nominal and verbal constituents, and small clauses (SCs).

Section 1 consists of five articles, including a discussion of the relationship between the main and auxiliary forms of the verbs have and be. H argues that previous claims that have is derived from be may be correct. Additionally, he claims that be is a transitive verb whose internal argument is made into subject. Other topics in this section include indirect objects, actives and passives, and verbal affixation.

Section 2 deals with T-chains and consists of four articles that deal with topics such as (i) the complements of perception verbs and the impossibility of an embedded argument raising into the matrix clause (e.g. I heard Mary sing a song vs. Mary was heard sing a song); (ii) complementation of causative verbs in French and Italian and their similarities to auxiliaries; (iii) long clitic climbing in Romance and head-movement; and (iv) the empty category principle, islands, that-trace, and tense marking.

Section 3 focuses on bracketing paradoxes, which H and his coauthors, Harry van der Hulst and Frans van der Putten, conclude in the first article do not exist. In each case, either the order in which the morphemes are put together (i.e. level ordering theory) or the semantic structures are shown to have properties that resolve the paradox. The second article deals with the nominal infinitive in Dutch, and the third article discusses of-insertion in nominal constructions (e.g. The enemy’s destruction of the city). Extending a proposal by Richard Kayne that many nominals have the structure determiner (D) complementizer phrase (CP), H argues for treating of as a complementizer.

The final section contains two articles. The first article examines morphologically complex verbs, and H argues that a view in which words are formed presyntactically is untenable. The second article investigates SCs. H claims that predication is represented by SCs and that, in principle, all projections may instantiate a SC. Furthermore, H tries to unify projection and adjunction by making a distinction between different types of licensing.

This interesting book covers many syntactic topics; therefore, there is probably something in it for every syntactician, no matter what special interest they might have. However, this also means that the volume contains topics that some syntacticians may consider more peripheral as well.