The Cartography of Syntactic Structures

Abstract Syntactic structures are complex objects, whose subtle properties have been highlighted and elucidated by half a century of formal syntactic studies, building on a much older tradition. Their cartography is an attempt to draw maps as precise and detailed as possible of syntactic configurations. Broadly constructed in this way, it is not an approach or a hypothesis, but a research topic asking the question: what are the right structural maps for natural language syntax? This chapter discusses the following: inventory of functional categories, comparative syntax and typology, cartography and minimalism; and hierarchies, syntax, and semantics.