Chapter 9, the longest chapter, presents a step-by-step discussion of the OLG theory of syntax, focusing especially on issues of central concern to syntacticians: phrase structure, movement or filler-gap dependencies, and the architecture of grammar. A detailed walk-through of how to derive an English sentence is given, including formal definitions of syntactic features. Analyses of the range of typological variation observed in relevant word-order, case-marking and information-structural phenomena are presented from an OLG perspective, including detailed case studies of the Faroese clause structure facts presented in Chapter 2 and an in-depth treatment of object shift in Scandinavian languages. Ranking arguments, constraint definitions and factorial typologies are given where needed. Chapter 9 is intended to answer most of the major questions regarding how this theory handles a broader range of data.

Our understanding of the syntax of natural language and syntactic aspects that obtain across languages and other aspects that display variation has greatly benefited from research on a large number of languages representing a diversity of language families learned natively in their own contexts. We have a better understanding, for example, of the complexity of word order, agreement, case, questions, relative clauses, anaphoric dependencies, etc. As our empirical generalizations continue to be sharpened and refined, the Generative approach, particularly in its Minimalist version, has also been focusing on isolating properties of core syntax, such as Merge (both Internal and External) and the features and units that go into building syntactic structure and driving the different syntactic dependencies. Research on heritage languages has the potential to contribute to that debate. This chapter discusses some of the results of that research and its implications for the debate about Merge, movement, and the notion of root as an essential building block of syntactic structure.

Expands on aspects of ‘technical sociability’, which is underpinned by principles of reciprocity and periodicity, both involving forms of binary organization. These include what I dub the gracious riposte, a recurring behavioural pattern in which assertive and conciliatory gestures are juxtaposed. The commonly applied language model, involving the interpretation of music as ‘conversational’, is reviewed, and I also discuss the rise of the sharply memorable musical motive in the music of this time. This leads to a section on thematic interaction, whereby musical materials themselves, rather than players or instruments, may be heard to ‘converse’ with each other. Sometimes, though, the contrast between them suggests less a fruitful exchange than simple incompatibility. I then consider topic theory as a means of controlling our impressions of such diversity of musical materials, noting both its positive and its limiting aspects. To conclude, I consider the encompassing term ‘variety’, a desideratum of the time, which could, once more, be accounted a virtue or a vice.