Relativized Minimality (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Rating:
Summary: They won't let me delete this review!
Review: Can you believe that? I hit the wrong button, and now I have to write something here. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Don't be tempted to review Syntax monographs - it only leads to tears.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that it is a book - it has pages (several of them, I believe), and many of these pages have words on them. Some of these words are large, but on average, they seem to be of average size. The book is green, which goes nicely with other green books you may happen to own. The cover has an abstract design on it, which is, apparently, necessary for any and all linguistics books published these days.

If you know what Relativized Minimality is, you already have read this book. If you don't know, but think you'd like to, I would recommend reading each page, beginning at the front, until you come to the back. At the back, you can close the book and say with some satisfaction "There! THAT was Relativized Minimality!". And you can then replace it on the shelf with other green books that you own - perhaps others by MIT even (though this series has many other colors in it). I would recommend against choosing an MIT Linguistics book based solely on its color. For example, although this book and Andrea Moro's Dynamic Antisymmetry are BOTH green - they do in fact have different conceptions of syntactic theory. This may mislead the uninitiated (and William Safire), but the more seasoned among us will learn to spot a different theory by the difference in names of the syntacticians on the cover.

Rating:
Summary: The Central Work of a Highly Respected Linguist
Review: This book advances an expansion in the understanding of government and binding theory. Rizzi basically makes the case that given X, Y, and Z, X cannot be bound by Z if Y is a potential governor of X as well. This highlights the concept of localized binding - something Chomsky explores in his own work quite extensively.

Rizzi is, by linguistics standards, a clear, concise writer. The book has clean diagrams that back up the text.