Ergativity and Word Order in Austronesian Languages

Ergativity and Word Order in Austronesian Languages PDF Author: Edith Catherine Aldridge
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Ergativity and Word Order in Austronesian Languages

Ergativity and Word Order in Austronesian Languages PDF Author: Edith Catherine Aldridge
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Book Description


The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity

The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity PDF Author: Jessica Coon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198739370
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1297

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Book Description
This volume examines the phenomenon of ergativity, a grammatical patterning whereby direct objects are in some way treated like intransitive subjects, to the exclusion of transitive subjects. It includes theoretical approaches from generative, typological, and functional paradigms, as well as 16 language-specific case studies.

Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages

Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages PDF Author: Hans-Martin Gärtner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110190052
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
A collection of papers devoted to the syntactic analysis of modification and extraction strategies in Austronesian languages such as Kavalan, Malagasy, Niuean, Seediq, and Tagalog. This work elucidates the categorical and phrase structural status and the scopal behavior of sentence-level adverbs, ordering constraints on adjectival modifiers.

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar PDF Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192526790
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 800

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Book Description
This book develops a minimalist approach to cross-linguistic morphosyntactic variation. Ian Roberts argues that the essential insight of the principles-and-parameters approach to variation can be maintained - albeit in a somewhat different guise - in the context of the minimalist programme for linguistic theory. The central idea is to organize the parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) into hierarchies that define the ways in which properties of individually variant categories and features may act in concert. A further leading idea, which is consistent with the overall goal of the minimalist programme to reduce the content of UG, is that the parameter hierarchies are not directly determined by UG, and are instead emergent properties stemming from the interaction of the three factors in language design. Cross-linguistic variation in word order, null subjects, incorporation, verb-movement, case/alignment, wh-movement, and negation are all analysed in the light of this approach. This book represents a significant new contribution to the formal study of cross-linguistic morphosyntactic variation on both the empirical and theoretical levels, and will appeal to researchers and students in all areas of theoretical linguistics and comparative syntax.

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change PDF Author: Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198832583
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters explore topics relating to all three domains of the clause as well as issues in methodology and modelling, drawing on data from a range of languages and dialects.

Continuity and Change in Grammar

Continuity and Change in Grammar PDF Author: Anne Breitbarth
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255423
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
One of the principal challenges of historical linguistics is to explain the "causes" of language change. Any such explanation, however, must also address the actuation problem: why is it that changes occurring in a given language at a certain time cannot be reliably predicted to recur in other languages, under apparently similar conditions? The sixteen contributions to the present volume each aim to elucidate various aspects of this problem, including: What processes can be identified as the drivers of change? How central are syntax-external (phonological, lexical or contact-based) factors in triggering syntactic change? And how can all of these factors be reconciled with the actuation problem? Exploring data from a wide range of languages from both a formal and a functional perspective, this book promises to be of interest to advanced students and researchers in historical linguistics, syntax and their intersection."

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics

Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics PDF Author: Raffaella Zanuttini
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013056
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Presenting cutting-edge research in syntax and semantics, this important volume furthers theoretical claims in generative linguistics and represents a significant addition to present scholarship in the field. Leading scholars present crosslinguistic studies dealing with clausal architecture, negation, and tense and aspect, and the issue of whether a statistical model can by itself capture the richness of human linguistic abilities. Taken together, these contributions elegantly show how theoretical tools can propel our understanding of language beyond pretheoretical descriptions, especially when combined with the insight and skills of linguists who can analyze difficult and complex data. Crosslinguistic Research in Syntax and Semantics covers a range of topics currently at the center of lively debate in the linguistic literature, such as the structure of the left periphery of the clause, the proper treatment of negative polarity items, and the role of statistical learning in building a model of linguistic competence. The ten original contributions offer an excellent balance of novel empirical description and theoretical analysis, applied to a wide range of languages, including Dutch, German, Irish English, Italian, Malagasy, Malay, and a number of medieval Romance languages. Scholars and students of semantics, syntax, and linguistic theory will find it to be a valuable resource for ongoing scholarship and advanced study.

Applicative Morphology

Applicative Morphology PDF Author: Sara Pacchiarotti
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110778025
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
This book is about recurrent functions of applicative morphology not included in typologically-oriented definitions. Based on substantial cross-linguistic evidence, it challenges received wisdom on applicatives in several ways. First, in many of the surveyed languages, applicatives are the sole means to introduce a non-Actor semantic role into a clause. When there is an alternative way of expression, the applicative counterpart often has no valence-increasing effect on the targeted root. Second, applicative morphology can introduce constituents which are not syntactic objects and/or co-occur with obliques. Third, functions such as conveying aspectual nuances to the predicate (intensity, repetition, habituality) or its arguments (partitive P, highly individuated P), narrow-focusing constituents, and functioning as category-changing devices are attested in geographically distant and genetically unrelated languages. Further, this volume reveals that spatial-related morphology is prone to developing applicative functions in disparate languages and phyla. Finally, several contributions discuss the diachrony of applicative constructions and their (non-syntactic) attested functions, including a case of applicatives-in-the-making.

Reconstructing Syntax

Reconstructing Syntax PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: Brill's Studies in Historical
ISBN: 9789004391994
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
"During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot's (2002: 625) conclusion: "[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we'll eat the pudding." This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax"--

The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics

The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics PDF Author: Claire Bowern
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317743245
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 777

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics provides a survey of the field covering the methods which underpin current work; models of language change; and the importance of historical linguistics for other subfields of linguistics and other disciplines. Divided into five sections, the volume encompass a wide range of approaches and addresses issues in the following areas: historical perspectives methods and models language change interfaces regional summaries Each of the thirty-two chapters is written by a specialist in the field and provides: a introduction to the subject; an analysis of the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic study of the topic; an overview of the main current and critical trends; and examples from primary data. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics is essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students working in this area. Chapter 28 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315794013.ch28