Ikpana Interrogatives

Ikpana Interrogatives PDF Author: Jason Kandybowicz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192845004
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book documents the interrogative system of Ikpana, an endangered indigenous Ghana-Togo Mountain language of eastern Ghana also known as Logba. The system is notable in several respects. It exhibits features that buck certain typological trends, act as counterexamples to some claims about language universals, and exemplify fascinating patterns that are either rare or unfamiliar in interrogative systems cross-linguistically. Drawing on original fieldwork and a combination of formal/theoretical, experimental, and comparative methodologies, the book provides a theoretically-informed description and analysis of Ikpana interrogative grammar, encompassing both syntactic and phonological aspects of question formation in the language. The chapters explore a range of phenomena including polar question formation, wh- movement, wh- in-situ, interrogative intonation, and prosody, among others. The authors demonstrate that theoretically-guided language documentation does not only contribute to language description, but can also increase understanding of the human Language Faculty and expand the empirical base of language typologies: bringing formal and theoretical concerns to the fore facilitates richer descriptions of the grammar than purely descriptive approaches allow.

Ikpana Interrogatives

Ikpana Interrogatives PDF Author: Jason Kandybowicz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192845004
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book documents the interrogative system of Ikpana, an endangered indigenous Ghana-Togo Mountain language of eastern Ghana also known as Logba. The system is notable in several respects. It exhibits features that buck certain typological trends, act as counterexamples to some claims about language universals, and exemplify fascinating patterns that are either rare or unfamiliar in interrogative systems cross-linguistically. Drawing on original fieldwork and a combination of formal/theoretical, experimental, and comparative methodologies, the book provides a theoretically-informed description and analysis of Ikpana interrogative grammar, encompassing both syntactic and phonological aspects of question formation in the language. The chapters explore a range of phenomena including polar question formation, wh- movement, wh- in-situ, interrogative intonation, and prosody, among others. The authors demonstrate that theoretically-guided language documentation does not only contribute to language description, but can also increase understanding of the human Language Faculty and expand the empirical base of language typologies: bringing formal and theoretical concerns to the fore facilitates richer descriptions of the grammar than purely descriptive approaches allow.

The Algonquian Inverse

The Algonquian Inverse PDF Author: Will Oxford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192699873
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book serves as a definitive reference for the inverse morphology of the Algonquian languages, which has attracted much attention in typological and theoretical linguistics. Will Oxford describes the patterning of inverse morphology across the Algonquian family and presents a framework for understanding the structure and function of the Algonquian inverse that is empirically driven and typologically grounded. He presents data from all documented Algonquian languages and considers not only the morphology of the inverse construction but also its syntax and pragmatics, giving equal weight to diachronic, typological, functional, and formal perspectives. From the integration of these perspectives, a simple and coherent understanding of the nature of the inverse emerges. The key proposal is that the inverse is "deep" in some contexts and "shallow" in others. In interactions between two third persons, the inverse is a "deep" patient voice construction that inverts the canonical morphology, syntax, and pragmatics of a transitive clause. In interactions between a third person and a first or second person, the inverse is a "shallow" hierarchical agreement pattern implemented through a spurious use of patient voice morphology, inverting the canonical morphology of a transitive clause but having no effect on syntax or pragmatics. This split analysis, which reflects the likely diachronic development of the Algonquian inverse, is argued to have various benefits, including the resolution of a longstanding controversy over the syntactic status of the inverse.

The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management

The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management PDF Author: Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262045265
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 687

Get Book Here

Book Description
A guide to principles and methods for the management, archiving, sharing, and citing of linguistic research data, especially digital data. "Doing language science" depends on collecting, transcribing, annotating, analyzing, storing, and sharing linguistic research data. This volume offers a guide to linguistic data management, engaging with current trends toward the transformation of linguistics into a more data-driven and reproducible scientific endeavor. It offers both principles and methods, presenting the conceptual foundations of linguistic data management and a series of case studies, each of which demonstrates a concrete application of abstract principles in a current practice. In part 1, contributors bring together knowledge from information science, archiving, and data stewardship relevant to linguistic data management. Topics covered include implementation principles, archiving data, finding and using datasets, and the valuation of time and effort involved in data management. Part 2 presents snapshots of practices across various subfields, with each chapter presenting a unique data management project with generalizable guidance for researchers. The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management is an essential addition to the toolkit of every linguist, guiding researchers toward making their data FAIR: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

Cleft Structures

Cleft Structures PDF Author: Katharina Hartmann
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271127
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book Here

Book Description
The phenomenon of clefts is beyond doubt a golden oldie. It has captivated linguists of different disciplines for decades. The fascination arises from the unique syntax of clefts in interaction with their pragmatic and semantic interpretation. Clefts structure sentences according to the information state of the constituents contained in them. They are special as they exhibit a rather uncommon syntactic form to achieve the separation of the prominent part, either focal or topical, from the background of the clause. Despite the long-lasting interest in clefts, linguists have not yet come to an agreement on many basic questions. The articles contained in this volume address these issues from new theoretical and empirical perspectives. Based on data from about 50 languages from all over the world, this volume presents new arguments for the proper derivation of clefts, and contributes to the ongoing debate on the information-structural impact of cleft structures. Theoretically, it combines modern syntactic theorizing with investigations at the interface between grammar and information-structure.

Modular Design of Grammar

Modular Design of Grammar PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191937200
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume presents the latest research in linguistic modules and interfaces in Lexical-Functional Grammar. It draws on data from a range of typologically diverse languages, including Arabic, Icelandic, Kelabit, Polish, and Urdu, and will be of interest to all those working on linguistic interfaces from a variety of theoretical standpoints.

Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact

Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact PDF Author: Mily Crevels
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198723814
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book addresses the complex question of how and why languages have spread across the globe. International experts in the field explore this issue using new analytical research techniques and drawing on large databases, with a focus on the language and population histories of Island Southeast Asia/Oceania, Africa, and South America.

The Phonology of Norwegian

The Phonology of Norwegian PDF Author: Gjert Kristoffersen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198237650
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Get Book Here

Book Description
A the end of the fourteenth century, Norway, having previously been an independent kingdom, became by conquest a province of Denmark and remained so for three centuries. In1814, as part of the fall-out from the Napoleonic wars, the country became a largely independent nation within the monarchy of Sweden. By this time, however, Danish had become the language of government, commerce, and education, as well as of the middle and upper classes. Nationalistic Norwegians sought to reestablish native identity by creating and promulgating a new language based partly on rural dialects and partly on Old Norse. The upper and middle classes sought to retain a form of Norwegian close to Danish that would be intelligible to themselves and to their neighbours in Sweden and Denmark. The controversy has gone on ever since. One result is that the standard dictionaries of Norwegian ignore pronunciation, for no version can be counted as 'received'. Another is that there has been considerable variety and change in Norwe

The Complexities of Morphology

The Complexities of Morphology PDF Author: Peter Arkadiev
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198861281
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume explores the multiple aspects of morphological complexity, offering typological, acquisitional, sociolinguistic, and diachronic perspectives. The analyses are based on rich empirical data from a wide range of languages, as well as experimental data from artificial language learning.

Kayardild Morphology and Syntax

Kayardild Morphology and Syntax PDF Author: Erich R. Round
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199654875
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents new data and analyses of the inflectional system and syntax of Kayardild, a typologically striking language of Australia. By virtue of the technical format employed, the book makes Kayardild accessible to mainstream formal linguistic theory, and so will appeal to a broad new audience as well as to those who know Kayardild well.

Phonological Typology

Phonological Typology PDF Author: Matthew Kelly Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199669007
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides an overview of phonological typology: the study of how sounds are distributed across the languages of the world and why they display these distributions and patterns. Matthew Gordon analyses cross-linguistic data from a range of sources to gain insight into the driving forces behind a variety of phonological phenomena.