Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation

Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation PDF Author: James R. Black
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027276226
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Richard Kayne’s introduction to this volume stresses that comparative work on the syntax of very closely related languages and dialects is a research tool promising to provide both a broad understanding of parameters at their finest-grained and an approach to the question of the minimal units of syntactic variation. The 11 articles in this collection demonstrate the use of this tool in analyzing microparametric variation, principally with reference to Chomsky’s Minimalist program, in a variety of languages. Topics include se/si constructions, hypothetical infinitives and adverbial quantifiers in French and other Romance languages; that-trace variation, Scandinavian possessive constructions, reflexives and subject-verb agreement in Icelandic & Faroese, and verb clusters in continental West Germanic dialects; anaphoric agreement in Labrador Inuttut; negative particle questions in Chinese; imperative inversion in Belfast English; and the second person singular interrogative in the traditional vernacular of Bolton.

Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation

Microparametric Syntax and Dialect Variation PDF Author: James R. Black
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027276226
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book

Book Description
Richard Kayne’s introduction to this volume stresses that comparative work on the syntax of very closely related languages and dialects is a research tool promising to provide both a broad understanding of parameters at their finest-grained and an approach to the question of the minimal units of syntactic variation. The 11 articles in this collection demonstrate the use of this tool in analyzing microparametric variation, principally with reference to Chomsky’s Minimalist program, in a variety of languages. Topics include se/si constructions, hypothetical infinitives and adverbial quantifiers in French and other Romance languages; that-trace variation, Scandinavian possessive constructions, reflexives and subject-verb agreement in Icelandic & Faroese, and verb clusters in continental West Germanic dialects; anaphoric agreement in Labrador Inuttut; negative particle questions in Chinese; imperative inversion in Belfast English; and the second person singular interrogative in the traditional vernacular of Bolton.

Micro-syntactic Variation in North American English

Micro-syntactic Variation in North American English PDF Author: Raffaella Zanuttini
Publisher: Oxford Studies in Comparative
ISBN: 0199367213
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Comparative work on linguistic varieties that are overall very similar can help us determine where and how exactly grammatical systems differ from one another, and how they change over time. This book explores a range of data on unfamiliar constructions across regional and social dialects.

Syntactic Variation and Verb Second

Syntactic Variation and Verb Second PDF Author: Federica Cognola
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255849
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This monograph investigates the syntax of the finite verb in Máocheno, a minority language spoken in a German speech island of Northern Italy. Basing her study on detailed new data collected during extensive fieldwork, and focusing on finite verb movement; on multiple access to the left periphery; on pro licensing mechanism and on the distribution of OV/VO word orders, the author refutes the traditional view that the syntactic variation found in Máocheno is due to the presence of two competing grammars as a consequence of contact with Romance varieties and accounts for the peculiarities of Máocheno syntax within a theory couched in the framework of Generative Grammar. This book contributes to our understanding of the verb-second phenomenon and sheds new light on the asymmetries between Old Romance and Germanic verb-second languages. A useful tool for all linguists working on both theoretical and comparative syntax and to anyone interested in language variation, dialectology and typology.

The Limits of Syntactic Variation

The Limits of Syntactic Variation PDF Author: Theresa Biberauer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027290660
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
Against the background of the past half century’s typological and generative work on comparative syntax, this volume brings together 16 papers considering what we have learned and may still be able to learn about the nature and extent of syntactic variation. More specifically, it offers a multi-perspective critique of the Principles and Parameters approach to syntactic variation, evaluating the merits and shortcomings of the pre-Minimalist phase of this enterprise and considering and illustrating the possibilities opened up by recent empirical and theoretical advances. Contributions focus on four central topics: firstly, the question of the locus of variation, whether the attested variation may plausibly be understood in parametric terms and, if so, what form such parameters might take; secondly, the fate of one of the most prominent early parameters, the Null Subject Parameter; thirdly, the matter of parametric clusters more generally; and finally, acquisition issues.

Variation in Language: System- and Usage-based Approaches

Variation in Language: System- and Usage-based Approaches PDF Author: Aria Adli
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110346850
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Where is the locus of language variation? In the grammar, outside the grammar or somewhere in between? Taking up the debate between system- and usage-based approaches, this volume provides new discussions of fundamental issues of language variation. It includes several highly insightful theoretical contributions as well as innovative empirical studies considering different types of data, the role of priming in language change and rare phenomena.

Variation in Datives

Variation in Datives PDF Author: Beatriz Fernandez
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199937362
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Variation in Datives collects new research on the nature of syntactic micro-variation in datives. The papers in this volume examine different aspects of internal variation in dative marking, such as agreement and case alternations, distribution of adpositional structures and dative case-marking, the different structural positions of dative arguments and their semantic contribution, and patterns of syncretism in the clitic and/or agreement system. Interest in these topics has grown significantly in the past 20 years. Variation in Datives makes a significant contribution to our understanding of language variation, as it adds the micro-comparative perspective to the general discussion and includes 10 new articles on a wide range of European languages, including Greek, Basque, Icelandic, and Serbo-Croatian. Variation in Datives will appeal to scholars and advanced students of syntax, linguistic variation, and especially syntactic micro-variation.

Linguistic Universals and Language Variation

Linguistic Universals and Language Variation PDF Author: Peter Siemund
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110238063
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The volume explores the relationship between linguistic universals and language variation. Its contributions identify the recurrent patterns and principles behind the complex spectrum of observable variation. The volume bridges the gap between cross-linguistic variation, regional variation, diachronic variation, contact-induced variation as well as socially conditioned variation. Moreover, it addresses fundamental methodological and theoretical issues of variation research. The volume brings together internationally renowned specialists of their fields while, at the same time, offering a platform for gifted and highly talented young researchers. The authors come from different theoretical backgrounds and through their work illustrate a rich array of scientific methods. All authors share a strong belief in empirically founded theoretical work. The contributions span a high number of languages and dialects from many parts of the world. They are extremely broad in their empirical coverage addressing an impressive selection of grammatical domains.

The future of dialects

The future of dialects PDF Author: Marie-Hélène Côté
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3946234186
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Traditional dialects have been encroached upon by the increasing mobility of their speakers and by the onslaught of national languages in education and mass media. Typically, older dialects are “leveling” to become more like national languages. This is regrettable when the last articulate traces of a culture are lost, but it also promotes a complex dynamics of interaction as speakers shift from dialect to standard and to intermediate compromises between the two in their forms of speech. Varieties of speech thus live on in modern communities, where they still function to mark provenance, but increasingly cultural and social provenance as opposed to pure geography. They arise at times from the need to function throughout the different groups in society, but they also may have roots in immigrants’ speech, and just as certainly from the ineluctable dynamics of groups wishing to express their identity to themselves and to the world. The future of dialects is a selection of the papers presented at Methods in Dialectology XV, held in Groningen, the Netherlands, 11-15 August 2014. While the focus is on methodology, the volume also includes specialized studies on varieties of Catalan, Breton, Croatian, (Belgian) Dutch, English (in the US, the UK and in Japan), German (including Swiss German), Italian (including Tyrolean Italian), Japanese, and Spanish as well as on heritage languages in Canada.

Linguistic Variation Issues: Case and Agreement in Northern Russian Participial Constructions

Linguistic Variation Issues: Case and Agreement in Northern Russian Participial Constructions PDF Author: Civardi, Antonio
Publisher: Firenze University Press
ISBN: 8864533265
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This study offers a novel approach to a longstanding problem in Slavic Linguistics, the formal representation of the Northern Russian participial constructions in -n(o)/-t(o). Unlike previous works, the methodological stance adopted by the author focuses on singling out all the relevant patterns of variation and on pursuing a unified explanation for them. The key to the solution of the puzzle is the idea that the participial affix -n-/-t- and the agreement inflections are not just pieces of morphology inserted post-syntactically, but true heads that enter the computation and are able to manipulate the argumental roles of the verb and to check the EPP. The author’s proposal is properly framed in the context of current debate on interlanguage variation.

The Morphosyntax of Portuguese and Spanish in Latin America

The Morphosyntax of Portuguese and Spanish in Latin America PDF Author: Mary Aizawa Kato
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190465891
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Recent trends in syntax and morphology have shown the great importance of doing research on variation in closely related languages. This book centers on the study of the morphology and syntax of the two major Romance Languages spoken in Latin America from this perspective. The works presented here either compare Brazilian Portuguese with European Portuguese or compare Latin American Spanish and Peninsular Spanish, or simply compare Portuguese and its varieties with Spanish and its varieties. The chapters advance on a great variety of theoretical questions related to coordination, clitics, hyper-raising, infinitives, null objects, null subjects, hyper-raising, passives, quantifiers, pseudo-clefts, questions and distributed morphology. Finally, this book provides new empirical findings and enriches the descriptions made about Portuguese and Spanish Spoken in the Americas by providing new generalizations, new data and new statistical evidence that help better understand the nature of such variation. The studies contained in this book show a vast array of new phenomena in these young varieties, offering empirical and theoretical windows to language variation and change.