Copular Constructions in Lithuanian

Copular Constructions in Lithuanian PDF Author: Rolandas Mikulskas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267421
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The fourth volume in the VARGReB series presents an in-depth investigation of Lithuanian copular constructions from the viewpoint of Cognitive Grammar. Apart from the fundamental problems of the ontology and taxonomy of copular sentences, the author also discusses a number of more specific questions on which the Lithuanian data, contrasted with those of English and other languages hitherto dealt with in the literature, can shed an interesting light, such as the nature and distinctive features of specificationals, the problem of subjecthood in this subtype of copular constructions, the aspectual semantics of copular sentences, etc. The attention given to the grammatical context of copular constructions and the multifarious relationships linking them to other construction types enhances the book’s relevance to the field of Lithuanian studies, whereas the dialogue and confrontation between the Cognitive perspective adopted by the author and the more formal approaches hitherto applied to the problem of copular sentences will add to its interest for the general reader.

Copular Constructions in Lithuanian

Copular Constructions in Lithuanian PDF Author: Rolandas Mikulskas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267421
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
The fourth volume in the VARGReB series presents an in-depth investigation of Lithuanian copular constructions from the viewpoint of Cognitive Grammar. Apart from the fundamental problems of the ontology and taxonomy of copular sentences, the author also discusses a number of more specific questions on which the Lithuanian data, contrasted with those of English and other languages hitherto dealt with in the literature, can shed an interesting light, such as the nature and distinctive features of specificationals, the problem of subjecthood in this subtype of copular constructions, the aspectual semantics of copular sentences, etc. The attention given to the grammatical context of copular constructions and the multifarious relationships linking them to other construction types enhances the book’s relevance to the field of Lithuanian studies, whereas the dialogue and confrontation between the Cognitive perspective adopted by the author and the more formal approaches hitherto applied to the problem of copular sentences will add to its interest for the general reader.

The Circum-Baltic Languages

The Circum-Baltic Languages PDF Author: Östen Dahl
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027230591
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
The area around the Baltic Sea has for millennia been a meeting-place for people of different origins. Among the circum-Baltic languages, we find three major branches of Indo-European —Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic, the Baltic-Finnic languages from the Uralic phylum and several others. The circum-Baltic area is an ideal place to study areal and contact phenomena in languages. The present set of two volumes look at the circum-Baltic languages from a typological, areal and historical perspective, trying to relate the intricate patterns of similarities and dissimilarities to the societal background. In Volume II, selected phenomena in the grammars of the circum-Baltic languages are studied in a cross-linguistic perspective.

The Finnish Case System

The Finnish Case System PDF Author: Minna Jaakola
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN: 9518586462
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
The Finnish language is perhaps best known for its rich case system. Depending on the definition of a case, Finnish has at least fourteen, possibly fifteen or even more cases. This volume is the first comprehensive English-language account of the Finnish case system, focusing primarily on its semantic functions. This collection of articles presents an up-to-date overview of the Finnish case system, analyses central subsystems within it, and offers data-based analyses of the functions of individual cases. The authors approach Finnish cases from different perspectives within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. The volume also addresses more general topics, such as the notion of case, questions of polysemy, the traditional division of cases into grammatical and semantic, the relationship between inflection and derivation as well as the role of inflection in the structuring of the categories of adpositions and adverbs. The book will be of interest to linguists and students as well as to those readers who are not familiar with cognitive linguistics. The analyses presented here will be relevant to anyone investigating the essence of case and the emergence of linguistic meaning.

Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic

Voice and Argument Structure in Baltic PDF Author: Axel Holvoet
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267952
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
The second volume in the VARGReB series deals with voice in the wider sense, encompassing both alternations that preserve semantic valency, with passives as the most typical instance, and valency-changing devices such as the causative. Regarding the former, special attention is given to event-structural conditions on passivization, non-canonical passives, and the relation between passives and (active) impersonals. Papers dealing with causatives focus on valency patterns and argument marking in canonical as well as extended uses of causative morphology. Other articles consider converse constructions and the argument structure of middles, which seem to hold a position between voice in the narrow sense and valency-changing operations. An introductory article provides background information on the repertoire of voice alternations in Baltic from a cross-linguistic perspective. Representing different approaches and methods, the contributions to this volume offer fine-grained analyses of data from contemporary Latvian and Lithuanian.

Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding in Baltic

Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding in Baltic PDF Author: Axel Holvoet
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270392
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
This is the first of three volumes dealing with clausal architecture, grammatical relations, case-marking and the syntax–semantics interface in Baltic. It focuses on the grammatical relations of subject and object and the viability of these notions in languages like Lithuanian and Latvian, which have a rich case morphology and show many deviations from the canonical nominative-accusative pattern of case-marking. The issues examined include differential object marking, subjecthood in specificational copular constructions, ‘swarm’-type alternations and what they tell us about grammatical relations, special types of subject and object marking in non-finite clauses, and non-canonical grammatical relations induced by modal predicates. One study provides a comparative outlook towards Icelandic, another language noted for its complex marking of grammatical relations. The articles in the volume represent various theoretical frameworks.

The Expression of Predicative Possession

The Expression of Predicative Possession PDF Author: Lidia Mazzitelli
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110412322
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book discusses the constructions used in Belarusian and Lithuanian to express predicative Possession. The work is written within a typological frame: the Belarusian and Lithuanian constructions are analyzed in the light of the typology of the possessive predicative constructions proposed by Heine (1997).

The Middle Voice in Baltic

The Middle Voice in Baltic PDF Author: Axel Holvoet
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027261083
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The fifth volume in the VARGReB series is a monograph presenting a collection of studies on middle-voice grams in Baltic, that is, on a widely ramified family of constructions with different syntactic and semantic properties but sharing a morphological marker of reflexive origin. Though the emphasis is on Baltic, ample attention is given to other languages as well, especially to Slavonic. The book offers many new insights into questions of syntactic and semantic interpretation, correct demarcation and diachronic explanation of middle-voice grams. The relationship between reflexive and middle, the workings of metonymy, changes in syntactic structure and lexical input as factors determining diachronic shifts within the middle-voice domain and transitions from one middle-voice gram to another – these are among the topics discussed in the book, which, beyond its relevance to Baltic and Slavonic scholarship, is also a contribution to the typology of the middle voice.

The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages

The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages PDF Author: Martine Robbeets
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192526782
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1008

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Book Description
The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages provides a comprehensive account of the Transeurasian languages, and is the first major reference work in the field since 1965. The term 'Transeurasian' refers to a large group of geographically adjacent languages that includes five uncontroversial linguistic families: Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic. The historical connection between these languages, however, constitutes one of the most debated issues in historical comparative linguistics. In the present book, a team of leading international scholars in the field take a balanced approach to this controversy, integrating different theoretical frameworks, combining both functional and formal linguistics, and showing that genealogical and areal approaches are in fact compatible with one another. The volume is divided into five parts. Part I deals with the historical sources and periodization of the Transeurasian languages and their classification and typology. In Part II, chapters provide individual structural overviews of the Transeurasian languages and the linguistic subgroups that they belong to, while Part III explores Transeurasian phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, and semantics from a comparative perspective. Part IV offers a range of areal and genealogical explanations for the correlations observed in the preceding parts. Finally, Part V combines archaeological, genetic, and anthropological perspectives on the identity of speakers of Transeurasian languages. The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages will be an indispensable resource for specialists in Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages and for anyone with an interest in Transeurasian and comparative linguistics more broadly.

Modals in the Languages of Europe

Modals in the Languages of Europe PDF Author: Björn Hansen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219204
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive survey of modals and modal constructions in the languages of Europe. It is a collaborative effort between scholars from Europe and the United States, stemming from a workshop on Modals in the Languages of Europe in Valencia. The aim of this book is to describe the properties of modals and modal constructions in the European area and to compare the systems in individual languages or language families from an areal and genetic perspective. For the sake of contrast, the book also looks at the expression of modality in some languages just outside of Europe. The book consists of fourteen chapters on modal systems in individual languages or language families, written by experts in the respective languages, and an introductory and concluding chapter, written by the editors. The book gives both a description of the modals in the individual languages and an account of the nature and status of modals in general. It provides the reader with a theoretical account of how modals and modal constructions are grammaticalized. This theoretical account is informed by the parameters of grammaticalization of Christian Lehmann. These parameters were chosen because they are language-independent, as opposed to more language specific criteria (for instance, the NICE-criteria for English). The parameters themselves are examined as well for their suitability as part of any theory of grammaticalization. The book thus gives readers access to a collection of data on modality that surpasses most works in this field and also provides a fresh perspective on issues of grammaticalization and language contact. It is therefore of interest to scholars of modality, language contact and areal linguistics, grammaticalization theory and typology.

Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions

Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Verb Constructions PDF Author: Signe Oksefjell Ebeling
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443882305
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This volume sheds new light on verb constructions by exposing them to cross-linguistic analysis based on multilingual corpora. It is composed of nine studies which provide insights into various aspects of cross-linguistic diversity, including showing that seemingly equivalent verb constructions may differ in their semantics, and that similar meanings may be expressed by different types of constructions. In other words, this book shows that different languages have different ways of lexicalising verb-based meanings, most notably by means of other, divergent verb constructions. A range of lexicogrammatical aspects of verb constructions are explored throughout the book, including time reference; modality; voice; light verb constructions; non-finite complementation of lexical verbs; posture-verb constructions; semiperiphrastic constructions; and the construction and semantic composition of verbs of putting. All of the contributions consider English in comparison with at least one of the following languages: Czech, German, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish. As such, this volume offers a truly multilingual perspective on verb constructions. The diversity of comparisons also highlights the multi-faceted nature of the verb phrase, which seems to have virtually limitless potential for exploration in the fields of tense, aspect, modality, lexical semantics, syntax, and phraseology.