Clause structure and adjuncts in Austronesian languages

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This collection of papers focuses on the syntactic analysis of modification and extraction strategies in various Austronesian languages, including Kavalan, Malagasy, Niuean, Seediq, and Tagalog. Authored by leading scholars, it explores the categorial and phrase structural status of sentence-level adverbs, the ordering constraints on adjectival modifiers, and the nature of unbounded dependencies in relation to Philippine-type voice systems. Theoretical frameworks include Guglielmo Cinque's universal ordering hypothesis for adverbs and recent work on remnant movement. Specific analyses include lower VP-adverbs in Kavalan as serial verbs, two types of adverbial heads in Seediq, DP-internal serializations in Niuean, relative adverb ordering in Tagalog, a clefting approach to unbounded dependencies in Malagasy, and an assessment of remnant movement constraints in Malagasy. The editors provide a critical survey of the empirical and theoretical background, presenting many empirical facts for the first time. This work aims to inspire further investigation into the often-overlooked aspects of modification strategies in Austronesian languages, making it valuable for linguists interested in contemporary syntactic analysis and the formal properties of these languages.