Grammatical Reconstruction

Grammatical Reconstruction PDF Author: Don Daniels
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110616211
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.

Grammatical Reconstruction

Grammatical Reconstruction PDF Author: Don Daniels
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110616211
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.

Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages

Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages PDF Author: Katalin É Kiss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110185508
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

Reconstructing Grammar

Reconstructing Grammar PDF Author: Spike Gildea
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027298564
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Comparative linguistics and grammaticalization theory both belong to the broader category of historical linguistics, yet few linguists practice both. The methods and goals of each group seem largely distinct: comparative linguists have by and large avoided reconstructing grammar, while grammaticalization theoreticians have either focused on explaining attested historical change or used internal reconstruction to formulate hypotheses about processes of change. In this collection, some of the leading voices in grammaticalization theory apply their methods to comparative data (largely drawn from indigenous languages of the Americas), showing not only that grammar can be reconstructed, but that the process of reconstructing grammar can yield interesting theoretical and typological insights.

A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language

A Concise Historical Grammar of the Albanian Language PDF Author: Vladimir Ė Orel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004116474
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This book deals with the historical development of the Albanian language (its phonology, morphology and lexicon) from prehistoric times to our days. The main focus of the book is the reconstruction of Proto-Albanian in its relation to its ancestor, Indo-European, and to modern Albanian.

A Grammar of Neverver

A Grammar of Neverver PDF Author: Julie Barbour
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 311028961X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
Neverver is an Oceanic language spoken by just over 500 people on the high island of Malekula in Vanuatu. Drawing on an extensive corpus of field recordings collected between 2004 and 2008, the analysis reveals a very interesting phonological system with six prenasalized segments, rich systems of possession, tense/aspect/mood marking, valence change, and verb serialization. The grammar is of interest to specialists in Oceanic and Austronesian linguistics, as well as to general linguists, especially those interested in linguistic typology.

Grammatical Change

Grammatical Change PDF Author: Rachel Hendery
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This volume comprises a collection of papers on the theme of grammatical change that evolved out of a workshop sponsored by the Centre for Research on Language Change (The Australian National University). The papers extend the boundaries of what has been addressed under the label of 'grammatical change' by applying theories and models of grammatical change to new evidence; by illuminating the historical relationships between grammar and other levels of linguistics; and by extending the range of languages that have been examined from the perspective of grammatical change. Languages discussed include Murriny Patha, Walpiri, Gurindji, Walmajarri, and Kayardild, Lardil, Yukulta, English, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Albanian, Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Tocharian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Quechua, Basque, and Tok Pisin

The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar

The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar PDF Author: Thomas Hoffmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199376638
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The last decade has seen a rise in popularity in construction-based approaches to grammar. The various approaches within the rubric 'construction grammar' all see language as a network of constructions-pairings of form and meaning. Construction Grammar, as a kind of cognitive linguistics, differs significantly from mainstream generative grammar as espoused by Chomsky and his followers. Advocates of Construction Grammar see it as a psychologically plausible theory of human language. As such, it is capable of providing a principled account of language acquisition, language variation and language change. Research in Construction Grammar also includes multidisciplinary cognitive studies in psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and computational linguistics. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar is the first authoritative reference work solely dedicated to Construction Grammar. Divided into five sections, the book will be an invaluable resource that students and scholars alike can turn to for a comprehensive account of current work on Construction Grammar, its theoretical foundations, and its applications to and relationship with other kinds of linguistic enquiry.

Perspectives on Historical Syntax

Perspectives on Historical Syntax PDF Author: Carlotta Viti
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027268932
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This volume discusses topics of historical syntax from different theoretical perspectives, ranging from Indo-European studies to generative grammar, functionalism, and typology. It examines mechanisms of syntactic change such as reanalysis, analogy, grammaticalization, independent drift, and language contact, as well as procedures of syntactic reconstruction. More than one factor is considered to explain a syntactic phenomenon, since it is maintained that an accurate account of multiple causations, of both structural and social nature, is to be preferred to considerations of economy. Special attention is given to the relationship between principles of syntactic theory and a search for data reliability through the methods of corpus linguistics. Data are drawn from a variety of languages, including Hittite, Vedic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Romance, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Austroasiatic, Gulf of Guinea creoles. The book may be therefore of interest for specialists of these languages in addition to scholars and advanced students of syntax and historical linguistics.

Functionalism and Grammar

Functionalism and Grammar PDF Author: T. Givón
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027273995
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
This book is Prof. Givón's long-awaited critical examination of the fundamental theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the functionalist approach to grammar. It challenges functionalists to take their own medicine and establish non-circular empirical definitions of both 'function' and 'structure'. Ideological hand-waving, however fervent and right-thinking, is seldom an adequate substitute for analytic rigor and empirical responsibility. If the reductionist extremism of the various structuralist schools is to be challenged on solid intellectual grounds, the challenge cannot itself be equally extreme in its reductionism. The book is divided into nine chapters: 1. Prospectus, somewhat jaundiced (overview) 2. Markedness as meta-iconicity: Distributional and cognitive correlates of syntactic structure 3. The functional basis of grammatical typology 4. Modal prototypes of truth and action 5. Taking structure seriously: Constituency and the VP node 6. Taking structure seriously II: Grammatical relations and clause union 7. The distribution of grammar in text: On interpreting conditional associations 8. Coming to terms with cognition: Coherence in text vs. coherence in mind 9. On the co-evolution of language, mind and brain.

Linguistic Reconstruction and Indo-European Syntax

Linguistic Reconstruction and Indo-European Syntax PDF Author: Paolo Ramat
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027235120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The aim of the colloquium, from which this volume derives, was to bring together approaches from general linguistics and language reconstruction, to show how these can benefit from eachother. Although the focus was on Indo-European languages, other language families were present in the discussion, as typological insights may provide useful parallels to IE phenomena and problems. At the core of the discussion was the methodological problem of induction vs deduction.