Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian

Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian PDF Author: Gábor Zólyomi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110401703
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This work is the first comprehensive description of Sumerian constructions involving a copula. Using around 400 fully glossed examples, it gives a thorough analysis of all uses of the copula, which is one of the least understood and most frequently misinterpreted and consequently mistranslated morphemes in Sumerian. It starts with a concise introduction into the grammatical structure of Sumerian, followed by a study that is accessible to both linguists and sumerologists, as it applies the terminology of modern descriptive linguistics. It provides the oldest known and documented example of the path of grammaticalization that leads from a copula to a focus marker. It gives the description of Sumerian copular paratactic relative clauses, which make use of an otherwise only scarcely attested relativization strategy. At the end of the book, the reader will have a clear picture about the morphological and syntactic devices used to mark identificational, polarity and sentence focus in Sumerian, one of the oldest documented languages in the world.

Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian

Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian PDF Author: Gábor Zólyomi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110401703
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work is the first comprehensive description of Sumerian constructions involving a copula. Using around 400 fully glossed examples, it gives a thorough analysis of all uses of the copula, which is one of the least understood and most frequently misinterpreted and consequently mistranslated morphemes in Sumerian. It starts with a concise introduction into the grammatical structure of Sumerian, followed by a study that is accessible to both linguists and sumerologists, as it applies the terminology of modern descriptive linguistics. It provides the oldest known and documented example of the path of grammaticalization that leads from a copula to a focus marker. It gives the description of Sumerian copular paratactic relative clauses, which make use of an otherwise only scarcely attested relativization strategy. At the end of the book, the reader will have a clear picture about the morphological and syntactic devices used to mark identificational, polarity and sentence focus in Sumerian, one of the oldest documented languages in the world.

Thetics and Categoricals

Thetics and Categoricals PDF Author: Werner Abraham
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027260877
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Thetics and Categoricals do not belong to the categories of German grammar. Thetics were introduced in logic as impersonal and broad focus constructions. They left profound and extensive traces in the logic of the late 19th century. For the class of thetic propositions, the criterion of textual exclusion plays the major role, i.e. the absence of any common grounds and of any anaphorism and background. In the foreground are sentences with sub­ject inversion, subject suppression and detopicalization. These and only these are suitable for text begin­nings, jokes, stage advertisements and solipsistic exclamatives, thus speech acts without com­mu­nicative goals – free expressives in the true sense of the word. The contribu­tions in this volume not only guide the reader through the history of philosophical logic and distributions of impersonals in contrast to Kantian categorical sentences, but also the correspondences in Japanese and Chinese which, in contrast to German and English, sport specific morphological markers for thetics as opposed to categoricals.

The Grammar of Perspective

The Grammar of Perspective PDF Author: Christopher Woods
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047442083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
The so-called Sumerian conjugation prefixes are the most poorly understood and perplexing elements of Sumerian verbal morphology. Approaching the problem from a functional-typological perspective and basing the analysis upon semantics, Professor Woods argues that these elements, in their primary function, constitute a system of grammatical voice, in which the active voice is set against the middle voice. The latter is represented by heavy and light markers that differ with respect to focus and emphasis. As a system of grammatical voice, the conjugation prefixes provided Sumerian speakers with a linguistic means of altering the perspective from which events may be viewed, giving speakers a series of options for better approximating in language the infinitely graded spectrum of human conceptualization and experience. "Woods is to be commended for establishing a new precedent for analyzing Sumerian grammar which will hopefully become a model for future studies of the language." Paul Delnero, Johns Hopkins University

Sumerian Grammar

Sumerian Grammar PDF Author: Dietz Otto Edzard
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047403401
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
It seems safe to say that this Sumerian Grammar by Professor D.O. Edzard will become the new classic reference in the field. It is an up-to-date, reliable guide to the language of the Sumerians, the inventors of cuneiform writing in the late 4th millennium B.C., and thus essential contributors to the high cultural standard of the whole of Mesopotamia and beyond. Following traditional lines, the Grammar describes general characteristics, origins, linguistic environment, phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and phraseology. Due attention is given to the symbiosis with Semitic Akkadian, with which Sumerian was to form a veritable linguistic area. With lucid explanations of all technical linguistic theory. Each transliteration carries its English translation.

Unaccusativity and the Double Object Construction in Sumerian

Unaccusativity and the Double Object Construction in Sumerian PDF Author: J. Cale Johnson
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 364350179X
Category : Sumerian language
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Sumerian, probably the earliest attested language in human history, has no known cognates. Accordingly, many features of Sumerian grammar are still under discussion. Up to now research has focused primarily on questions of Sumerian phonology and morphology. In this present study the author concentrates on syntactic or pragmatic phenomena, especially on the referential properties of the nominal component of certain so-called compound verbs, the unaccusativity contrast, and the possibility of generic quantification in the double object construction.

An outline of Sumerian grammar

An outline of Sumerian grammar PDF Author: Miguel Civil
Publisher: Edicions Universitat Barcelona
ISBN: 8491683747
Category : Education
Languages : ca
Pages : 178

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Book Description


An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian

An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian PDF Author: Gábor Zólyomi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789632848440
Category : Sumerian language
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This textbook provides an introduction to the grammar of Sumerian, one of the oldest documented languages in the world. It not only synthesizes the results of recent scholarship but introduces original insights on many important questions. The book is designed to appeal to readers of all backgrounds, including those with no prior background in Sumerian or cuneiform writing.It is written for undergraduate students and structured for a semester-long course: the order of the topics is determined by didactic considerations, with the focus on syntactic analysis and evidence. It explains the functioning of Sumerian grammar in 16 lessons, illustrated with more than 500 fully glossed examples. Each lesson ends with a series of tasks; a solution key to selected exercises can be found at the end of the volume. Above all, this is the first Sumerian textbook that introduces and utilizes the online assyriological resources available on the internet. An Introduction to the Grammar of Sumerian has been written on the assumption that after decades of grammatical research it has become possible now to teach a general framework of Sumerian grammar that may function as the basis of further, more intensive and elaborate studies.

Introduction to Sumerian Grammar

Introduction to Sumerian Grammar PDF Author: Daniel A. Foxvog
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781500724269
Category : Sumerian language
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Introduction to Sumerian Grammar

A Sumerian Grammar and Chrestomathy with a Vocabulary of the Principal Roots in Sumerian and a List of the Most Important Syllabic and Vowel Transcriptions

A Sumerian Grammar and Chrestomathy with a Vocabulary of the Principal Roots in Sumerian and a List of the Most Important Syllabic and Vowel Transcriptions PDF Author: Stephen Langdon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description


A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts

A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts PDF Author: John L. Hayes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780890031988
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description