Includes bibliographical references (pages 1006-1139) and indexes.

PART I. Background 1. Introduction / Marcel den Dikken -- 2. Brief overview of the history of generative syntax / Howard Lasnik and Terje Lohndal -- 3. Goals and methods of generative syntax / Frederick J. Newmeyer -- PART II. Modern generative approaches to the study of sentence structure -- 4. Principles and parameters theory and minimalism / Željko Bošković -- 5. Minimalism and optimality theory / Hans Broekhuis and Ellen Woolford -- 6. Lexical-functional grammar / Peter Sells -- 7. Phrase structure grammar / James P. Blevins and Ivan A. Sag -- 8. Tree adjoining grammar / Robert Frank -- PART III. Syntactic structures -- 9. Argument structure and argument structure alternations / Gillian Ramchand -- 10. The syntax of predication / Caroline Heycock -- 11. Lexical categories and (extended) projection / Norbert Corver -- 12. The functional structure of the sentence, and cartography / Luigi Rizzi -- 13. Adverbial and adjectival modification / Artemis Alexiadou --

PART IV. Syntactic processes: their nature locality, and motivation -- 14. Economy of derivation and representation / Samuel D. Epstein, Hisatsugu Kitahara, Miki Obata, and T. Daniel Seely -- 15. Syntax, binding and patterns of anaphora / Ken Safir -- 16. Raising and control / Maria Polinsky -- 17. Agreement and case / Mark C. Baker -- 18. The locality of syntactic dependencies / Marcel den Dikken and Antje Lahne -- PART V. Syntax and the internal interfaces -- 19. Ellipsis phenomena / Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Jason Merchant -- 20. Tense, aspect and modality / Karen Zagona -- 21. Negation and negative polarity / Hedde Zeijlstra -- 22. The syntax of scope and quantification / Veneeta Dayal -- 23. Syntax, information structure and prosody / Daniel Büring -- PART VI. Syntax and the external interfaces -- 24. Microsyntactic variation / Sjef Barbiers -- 25. Parameters: the pluses and the minuses / Rosalind Thornton and Stephen Crain -- 26. Syntax and the brain / Jon Sprouse and Ellen F. Lau.

Syntax - the study of sentence structure - has been at the centre of generative linguistics from its inception and has developed rapidly and in various directions. The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax provides a historical context for what is happening in the field of generative syntax today, a survey of the various generative approaches to syntactic structure available in the literature and an overview of the state of the art in the principal modules of the theory and the interfaces with semantics, phonology, information structure and sentence processing, as well as linguistic variation and language acquisition. This indispensable resource for advanced students, professional linguists (generative and non-generative alike) and scholars in related fields of inquiry presents a comprehensive survey of the field of generative syntactic research in all its variety, written by leading experts and providing a proper sense of the range of syntactic theories calling themselves generative.