Author: Katerina Chatzopoulou
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198712405
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
This book provides a thorough investigation of the expression of sentential negation in the history of Greek, based on extensive data from major stages of the language. It also provides a new semantic interpretation of Jespersen's cycle that explains the Greek developments and those in other languages.
Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek
Author: Katerina Chatzopoulou
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198712405
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
This book provides a thorough investigation of the expression of sentential negation in the history of Greek, based on extensive data from major stages of the language. It also provides a new semantic interpretation of Jespersen's cycle that explains the Greek developments and those in other languages.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198712405
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
This book provides a thorough investigation of the expression of sentential negation in the history of Greek, based on extensive data from major stages of the language. It also provides a new semantic interpretation of Jespersen's cycle that explains the Greek developments and those in other languages.
The History of Negation in the Languages of Europe and the Mediterranean
Author: David Willis
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199602530
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
This is the first of a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It examines the development of sentential negation and negative indefinites and quantifiers in languages and language groups such as Italian, English, Dutch, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Uralic, and Afro-Asiatic.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199602530
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
This is the first of a two-volume comparative history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean. It examines the development of sentential negation and negative indefinites and quantifiers in languages and language groups such as Italian, English, Dutch, German, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek, Uralic, and Afro-Asiatic.
The Evolution of Functional Left Peripheries in Hungarian Syntax
Author: Katalin É Kiss
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198709854
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
This book adopts a generative framework to investigate the diachronic syntax of Hungarian, one of only a handful of non-Indo-European languages with a documented history spanning more than 800 years. It focuses particularly on the restructuring of Hungarian syntax from head-final to head-initial and the resultant changes that occurred.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198709854
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
This book adopts a generative framework to investigate the diachronic syntax of Hungarian, one of only a handful of non-Indo-European languages with a documented history spanning more than 800 years. It focuses particularly on the restructuring of Hungarian syntax from head-final to head-initial and the resultant changes that occurred.
Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German
Author: Agnes Jäger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198813546
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
This volume presents the first comprehensive generative account of the historical syntax of German. Leading scholars in the field survey a range of topics and offer new insights into multiple central aspects of clause structure and word order, including verb placement, adverbial connectives, pronominal syntax, and information-structural factors.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198813546
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
This volume presents the first comprehensive generative account of the historical syntax of German. Leading scholars in the field survey a range of topics and offer new insights into multiple central aspects of clause structure and word order, including verb placement, adverbial connectives, pronominal syntax, and information-structural factors.
Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian
Author: Virginia Hill
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198736509
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The book provides a formal analysis of root and complement clauses in Old Romanian, focussing on the combination of Balkan syntactic patterns and Romance morphology. It presents a new perspective on the manifestation of Balkan Sprachbund properties in the language, and on the nature of parametric differences in relation to other Romance languages.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198736509
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The book provides a formal analysis of root and complement clauses in Old Romanian, focussing on the combination of Balkan syntactic patterns and Romance morphology. It presents a new perspective on the manifestation of Balkan Sprachbund properties in the language, and on the nature of parametric differences in relation to other Romance languages.
Language Change at the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Author: Chiara Gianollo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110394928
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
Bringing together diachronic research from a variety of perspectives, notably typology, formal syntax and semantics, this volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change - an issue so far largely neglected both in (mostly lexical) historical semantics as well as historical syntax, but recently brought into focus by grammaticalization theory as well as Minimalist diachronic syntax. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages including Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Greek as well as English and German, and discuss a range of phenomena such as change in negation markers, indefinite articles, quantifiers, modal verbs, argument structure among others. The papers analyze diachronic evidence in the light of contemporary syntactic and semantic theory, addressing the crucial question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked, and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110394928
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
Bringing together diachronic research from a variety of perspectives, notably typology, formal syntax and semantics, this volume focuses on the interplay of syntactic and semantic factors in language change - an issue so far largely neglected both in (mostly lexical) historical semantics as well as historical syntax, but recently brought into focus by grammaticalization theory as well as Minimalist diachronic syntax. The contributions draw on data from numerous Indo-European languages including Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indic, Greek as well as English and German, and discuss a range of phenomena such as change in negation markers, indefinite articles, quantifiers, modal verbs, argument structure among others. The papers analyze diachronic evidence in the light of contemporary syntactic and semantic theory, addressing the crucial question of how syntactic and semantic change are linked, and whether both are governed by similar constraints, principles and systematic mechanisms. The volume will appeal to scholars in historical linguistics and formal theories of syntax and semantics.
The Negative Existential Cycle
Author: Ljuba Veselinova
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961103399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 670
Book Description
In 1991, William Croft suggested that negative existentials (typically lexical expressions that mean ‘not exist, not have’) are one possible source for negation markers and gave his hypothesis the name Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). It is a variationist model based on cross-linguistic data. For a good twenty years following its formulation, it was cited at face-value without ever having been tested by (historical)-comparative data. Over the last decade, Ljuba Veselinova has worked on testing the model in a comparative perspective, and this edited volume further expands on her work. The collection presented here features detailed studies of several language families such as Bantu, Chadic and Indo-European. A number of articles focus on the micro-variation and attested historical developments within smaller groups and clusters such as Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, and Nanaic. Finally, variation and historical developments in specific languages are discussed for Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Moksha-Mordvin (Uralic), Bashkir (Turkic), Kalmyk (Mongolic), three Pama-Nyungan languages, O’dam (Southern Uto-Aztecan) and Tacana (Takanan, Amazonian Bolivia). The book is concluded by two chapters devoted to modeling cyclical processes in language change from different theoretical perspectives. Key notions discussed throughout the book include affirmative and negative existential constructions, the expansion of the latter into verbal negation, and subsequently from more specific to more general markers of negation. Nominalizations as well as the uses of negative existentials as standalone negative answers figure among the most frequent pathways whereby negative existentials evolve as general negation markers. The operation of the Negative Existential Cycle appears partly genealogically conditioned, as the cycle is found to iterate regularly within some families but never starts in others, as is the case in Bantu. In addition, other special negation markers such as nominal negators are found to undergo similar processes, i.e. they expand into the verbal domain and thereby develop into more general negation markers. The book provides rich information on a specific path of the evolution of negation, on cyclical processes in language change, and it show-cases the historical-comparative method in a modern setting.
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961103399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 670
Book Description
In 1991, William Croft suggested that negative existentials (typically lexical expressions that mean ‘not exist, not have’) are one possible source for negation markers and gave his hypothesis the name Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). It is a variationist model based on cross-linguistic data. For a good twenty years following its formulation, it was cited at face-value without ever having been tested by (historical)-comparative data. Over the last decade, Ljuba Veselinova has worked on testing the model in a comparative perspective, and this edited volume further expands on her work. The collection presented here features detailed studies of several language families such as Bantu, Chadic and Indo-European. A number of articles focus on the micro-variation and attested historical developments within smaller groups and clusters such as Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, and Nanaic. Finally, variation and historical developments in specific languages are discussed for Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Moksha-Mordvin (Uralic), Bashkir (Turkic), Kalmyk (Mongolic), three Pama-Nyungan languages, O’dam (Southern Uto-Aztecan) and Tacana (Takanan, Amazonian Bolivia). The book is concluded by two chapters devoted to modeling cyclical processes in language change from different theoretical perspectives. Key notions discussed throughout the book include affirmative and negative existential constructions, the expansion of the latter into verbal negation, and subsequently from more specific to more general markers of negation. Nominalizations as well as the uses of negative existentials as standalone negative answers figure among the most frequent pathways whereby negative existentials evolve as general negation markers. The operation of the Negative Existential Cycle appears partly genealogically conditioned, as the cycle is found to iterate regularly within some families but never starts in others, as is the case in Bantu. In addition, other special negation markers such as nominal negators are found to undergo similar processes, i.e. they expand into the verbal domain and thereby develop into more general negation markers. The book provides rich information on a specific path of the evolution of negation, on cyclical processes in language change, and it show-cases the historical-comparative method in a modern setting.
Gender from Latin to Romance
Author: Michele Loporcaro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199656541
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
This book explores grammatical gender in the Romance languages and dialects and its evolution from Latin. Michele Loporcaro investigates the significant diversity found in the Romance varieties in this regard; he draws on data from the Middle Ages to the present from all the Romance languages and dialects, discussing examples from Romanian to Portuguese and crucially also focusing on less widely-studied varieties such as Sursilvan, Neapolitan, and Asturian. The investigation first reveals that several varieties display more complex systems than the binary masculine/feminine contrast familiar from modern French or Italian. Moreover, it emerges that traditional accounts, whereby neuter gender was lost in the spoken Latin of the late Empire, cannot be correct: instead, the neuter gender underwent a range of different transformations from Late Latin onwards, which are responsible for the different systems that can be observed today across the Romance languages. The volume provides a detailed description of many of these systems, which in turns reveals a wealth of fascinating data, such as varieties where 'husbands' are feminine and others where 'wives' are masculine; dialects in which nouns overtly mark gender, but only in certain syntactic contexts; and one Romance variety (Asturian) in which it appears that grammatical gender has split into two concurrent systems. The volume will appeal to linguists from a range of backgrounds, including Romance linguistics, historical linguistics, typology, and morphosyntax, and is also of relevance to those working in sociology, gender studies, and psychology.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199656541
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
This book explores grammatical gender in the Romance languages and dialects and its evolution from Latin. Michele Loporcaro investigates the significant diversity found in the Romance varieties in this regard; he draws on data from the Middle Ages to the present from all the Romance languages and dialects, discussing examples from Romanian to Portuguese and crucially also focusing on less widely-studied varieties such as Sursilvan, Neapolitan, and Asturian. The investigation first reveals that several varieties display more complex systems than the binary masculine/feminine contrast familiar from modern French or Italian. Moreover, it emerges that traditional accounts, whereby neuter gender was lost in the spoken Latin of the late Empire, cannot be correct: instead, the neuter gender underwent a range of different transformations from Late Latin onwards, which are responsible for the different systems that can be observed today across the Romance languages. The volume provides a detailed description of many of these systems, which in turns reveals a wealth of fascinating data, such as varieties where 'husbands' are feminine and others where 'wives' are masculine; dialects in which nouns overtly mark gender, but only in certain syntactic contexts; and one Romance variety (Asturian) in which it appears that grammatical gender has split into two concurrent systems. The volume will appeal to linguists from a range of backgrounds, including Romance linguistics, historical linguistics, typology, and morphosyntax, and is also of relevance to those working in sociology, gender studies, and psychology.
The Cambridge Grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek
Author: David Holton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108640923
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 2258
Book Description
The Greek language has a written history of more than 3,000 years. While the classical, Hellenistic and modern periods of the language are well researched, the intermediate stages are much less well known, but of great interest to those curious to know how a language changes over time. The geographical area where Greek has been spoken stretches from the Aegean Islands to the Black Sea and from Southern Italy and Sicily to the Middle East, largely corresponding to former territories of the Byzantine Empire and its successor states. This Grammar draws on a comprehensive corpus of literary and non-literary texts written in various forms of the vernacular to document the processes of change between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, processes which can be seen as broadly comparable to the emergence of the Romance languages from Medieval Latin. Regional and dialectal variation in phonology and morphology are treated in detail.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108640923
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 2258
Book Description
The Greek language has a written history of more than 3,000 years. While the classical, Hellenistic and modern periods of the language are well researched, the intermediate stages are much less well known, but of great interest to those curious to know how a language changes over time. The geographical area where Greek has been spoken stretches from the Aegean Islands to the Black Sea and from Southern Italy and Sicily to the Middle East, largely corresponding to former territories of the Byzantine Empire and its successor states. This Grammar draws on a comprehensive corpus of literary and non-literary texts written in various forms of the vernacular to document the processes of change between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, processes which can be seen as broadly comparable to the emergence of the Romance languages from Medieval Latin. Regional and dialectal variation in phonology and morphology are treated in detail.
Noun-Based Constructions in the History of Portuguese and Spanish
Author: Patrícia Amaral
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192586459
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
This book explores syntactic and semantic change in three types of construction in Spanish and Portuguese: (i) complex determiner phrases with clausal adjunction (el hecho de, o facto de), (ii) complex prepositions/complementizers and complex connectives (sin embargo de/sem embargo de, so(b) pena de), and (iii) complex predicates containing light verbs (dar consejo/conselho de). While these constructions are syntactically different, they are all clause-taking complex expressions containing a noun followed by the functional preposition de ('of'). This book is the first work to use a systematic comparative corpus study to explore these expressions together; this approach allows individual changes to be distinguished from general changes, as well as emphasizing the chronological clustering of changes that involve complex constructions in both languages. By studying mechanisms of language change and their outcomes in two sister languages, Patrícia Amaral and Manuel Delicado Cantero address questions such as: How do complex constructions evolve? How does the meaning of the noun change when considered in isolation and when compared to the meaning of the whole construction? And how do syntactic categories change over time? This study of two closely-related languages reveals distinct developments occurring in parallel, and provides a crucial test case for theories of language change.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192586459
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
This book explores syntactic and semantic change in three types of construction in Spanish and Portuguese: (i) complex determiner phrases with clausal adjunction (el hecho de, o facto de), (ii) complex prepositions/complementizers and complex connectives (sin embargo de/sem embargo de, so(b) pena de), and (iii) complex predicates containing light verbs (dar consejo/conselho de). While these constructions are syntactically different, they are all clause-taking complex expressions containing a noun followed by the functional preposition de ('of'). This book is the first work to use a systematic comparative corpus study to explore these expressions together; this approach allows individual changes to be distinguished from general changes, as well as emphasizing the chronological clustering of changes that involve complex constructions in both languages. By studying mechanisms of language change and their outcomes in two sister languages, Patrícia Amaral and Manuel Delicado Cantero address questions such as: How do complex constructions evolve? How does the meaning of the noun change when considered in isolation and when compared to the meaning of the whole construction? And how do syntactic categories change over time? This study of two closely-related languages reveals distinct developments occurring in parallel, and provides a crucial test case for theories of language change.