Exploring the major syntactic phenomena of German, this book provides a state-of-the-art account of German syntax, as well as an outline of the key aspects of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. It is one of the first comprehensive studies of the entire syntactic component of a natural language within the Minimalist Program, covering core issues including clause structure, binding, case, agreement, control, and movement. It introduces a phase-based theory of syntax that establishes Remove, an operation that removes syntactic structure, as a mirror image of Merge, which builds syntactic structure. This unified approach resolves many cases of conflicting structure assignments in syntax, as they occur with passivization, restructuring, long-distance passivization, complex prefields, bridge verbs, applicatives, null objects, pseudo-noun incorporation, nominal concord, and ellipsis. It will pave the way for similar research into other languages and is essential reading for anyone interested in the syntax of German, syntactic theory, or the Minimalist Program.

‘… this monograph is highly successful, both as a comprehensive introduction to German syntax and as a novel minimalist take on the empirical phenomena in question. It is characterised by a level of explicitness, honesty, and humility that is rare in the syntactic literature … this is a textbook example of how a syntactic monograph should be written … an interesting read for anyone looking for state-of-the-art minimalist theory with an applicable toolkit.’

Kristin Klubbo Brodahl Source: Nordic Journal of Linguistics