Adverbial Clauses, Main Clause Phenomena, and Composition of the Left Periphery uses the cartographic theory to examine the left periphery of the English clause and compare it to the left-peripheral structures of other languages. Liliane Haegeman argues that the dissimilar surface characteristics of these languages (primarily English and Romance, but also Gungbe, Hungarian, Hebrew, Dutch, and others) can be explained by universal constraints, and that the same structures apply across the languages. Haegeman focuses on main clause transformations--movement operations that can only take place in main clauses.This syntactic proposal is interesting, well-motivated and presented in a logical and clear structure. It opens up fruitful opportunities for further work on the interface to semantics, which has also concerned itself with many of the phenomena touched upon here. The book starts off with a large data section which aggregates and complements previously reported judgments on the composition of the left periphery in English. For this part alone, the volume is a must read for any linguist interested in phenomena of the left periphery. The author meticulously records disagreements and variation with regard to the reported judgments, which can lead to new research into syntactic variation and cross-linguistic studies.
