Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027263515
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Interest in non-canonically case-marked subjects has been unceasing since the groundbreaking work of Andrews and Masica in the late 70’s who were the first to document the existence of syntactic subjects in another morphological case than the nominative. Their research was focused on Icelandic and South-Asian languages, respectively, and since then, oblique subjects have been reported for language after language throughout the world. This newfangled recognition of the concept of oblique subjects at the time was followed by discussions of the role and validity of subject tests, discussions of the verbal semantics involved, as well as discussions of the theoretical implications of this case marking strategy of syntactic subjects. This volume contributes to all these debates, making available research articles on different languages and language families, additionally highlighting issues like language contact, differential subject marking and the origin of oblique subjects.

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027263515
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Interest in non-canonically case-marked subjects has been unceasing since the groundbreaking work of Andrews and Masica in the late 70’s who were the first to document the existence of syntactic subjects in another morphological case than the nominative. Their research was focused on Icelandic and South-Asian languages, respectively, and since then, oblique subjects have been reported for language after language throughout the world. This newfangled recognition of the concept of oblique subjects at the time was followed by discussions of the role and validity of subject tests, discussions of the verbal semantics involved, as well as discussions of the theoretical implications of this case marking strategy of syntactic subjects. This volume contributes to all these debates, making available research articles on different languages and language families, additionally highlighting issues like language contact, differential subject marking and the origin of oblique subjects.

Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects

Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects PDF Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027298025
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In some languages every subject is marked in the same way, and also every object. But there are languages in which a small set of verbs mark their subjects or their objects in an unusual way. For example, most verbs may mark their subject with nominative case, but one small set of verbs may have dative subjects, and another small set may have locative subjects. Verbs with noncanonically marked subjects and objects typically refer to physiological states or events, inner feelings, perception and cognition. The Introduction sets out the theoretical parameters and defines the properties in terms of which subjects and objects can be analysed. Following chapters discuss Icelandic, Bengali, Quechua, Finnish, Japanese, Amele (a Papuan language), and Tariana (an Amazonian language); there is also a general discussion of European languages. This is a pioneering study providing new and fascinating data, and dealing with a topic of prime theoretical importance to linguists of many persuasions.

The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects

The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects PDF Author: Ilja A. Serzant
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271305
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This volume is an important contribution to the diachrony of non-canonical subjects in a typological perspective. The questions addressed concern the internal mechanisms and triggers for various changes that non-canonical subjects undergo, ranging from semantic motivations to purely structural explanations. The discussion encompasses the whole life-cycle of non-canonical subjects: from their emergence out of non-subject arguments to their expansion, demise or canonicization, focusing primarily on syntactic changes and changes in case-marking. The volume offers a number of different case studies comprising such languages as Italian, Spanish, Old Norse and Russian as well as languages less studied in this context, such as Latin, Classical Armenian, Baltic languages and some East Caucasian languages. Typological generalizations in the form of recurrent developmental paths are offered on the basis of data presented in this volume and in the literature.

Partitive Cases and Related Categories

Partitive Cases and Related Categories PDF Author: Silvia Luraghi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110346060
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
Argument-marking, morphological partitives have been the topic of language specific studies, while no cross-linguistic or typological analyses have been conducted. Since individual partitives of different languages have been studied, there exists a basis for a more cross-linguistic approach. The purpose of this book is to fill the gap and to bring together research on partitives in different languages.

Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding in Baltic

Grammatical Relations and their Non-Canonical Encoding in Baltic PDF Author: Axel Holvoet
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270392
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
This is the first of three volumes dealing with clausal architecture, grammatical relations, case-marking and the syntax–semantics interface in Baltic. It focuses on the grammatical relations of subject and object and the viability of these notions in languages like Lithuanian and Latvian, which have a rich case morphology and show many deviations from the canonical nominative-accusative pattern of case-marking. The issues examined include differential object marking, subjecthood in specificational copular constructions, ‘swarm’-type alternations and what they tell us about grammatical relations, special types of subject and object marking in non-finite clauses, and non-canonical grammatical relations induced by modal predicates. One study provides a comparative outlook towards Icelandic, another language noted for its complex marking of grammatical relations. The articles in the volume represent various theoretical frameworks.

Modes of Modality

Modes of Modality PDF Author: Elisabeth Leiss
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027270791
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 519

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Book Description
The volume aims at a universal definition of modality or “illocutionary/speaker’s perspective force” that is strong enough to capture the entire range of different subtypes and varieties of modalities in different languages. The central idea is that modality is all-pervasive in language. This perspective on modality allows for the integration of covert modality as well as peripheral instances of modality in neglected domains such as the modality of insufficieny, of attitudinality, or neglected domains such as modality and illocutionary force in finite vs. nonfinite and factive vs. non-factive subordinated clauses. In most languages, modality encompasses modal verbs both in their root and epistemic meanings, at least where these languages have the principled distribution between root and epistemic modality in the first place (which is one fundamentally restricted, in its strict qualitative and quantitative sense, to the Germanic languages). In addition, this volume discusses one other intricate and partially highly mysterious class of modality triggers: modal particles as they are sported in the Germanic languages (except for English). It is argued in the contributions and the languages discussed in this volume how modal verbs and adverbials, next to modal particles, are expressed, how they are interlinked with contextual factors such as aspect, definiteness, person, verbal factivity, and assertivity as opposed to other attitudinal types. An essential concept used and argued for is perspectivization (a sub-concept of possible world semantics). Language groups covered in detail and compared are Slavic, Germanic, and South East Asian. The volume will interest researchers in theoretical and applied linguistics, typology, the semantics/pragmatics interface, and language philosophy as it is part of a larger project developing an alternative approach to Universal Grammar that is compatible with functionalist approaches.

Oblique Subjects in Germanic

Oblique Subjects in Germanic PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111078019
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Pulling together the threads of forty years of research on oblique subjects in the Germanic languages, this book introduces a novel approach to grammatical relations, based on a definition of subject as the first argument of the argument structure. New data are presented from Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse-Icelandic, Old Swedish and Old Danish, as well as from Icelandic, Faroese and German. This includes alternating Dat-Nom/Nom-Dat predicates, where either argument, the dative or the nominative, takes on subject behavior. The subject concept is modeled with the formalism of Construction Grammar, both synchronically and for the purpose of reconstructing grammatical relations for Proto-Germanic.

Case and Grammatical Relations

Case and Grammatical Relations PDF Author: Greville G. Corbett
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027229945
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The papers in this volume can be grouped into two broad, overlapping classes: those dealing primarily with case and those dealing primarily with grammatical relations. With regard to case, topics include descriptions of the case systems of two Caucasian languages, the problems of determining how many cases Russian has and whether Hungarian has a case system at all, the issue of case-combining, the retention of the dative in Swedish dialects, and genitive objects in the languages of Europe. With regard to grammatical relations, topics include the order of obliques in OV and VO languages, the effects of the referential hierarchy on the distribution of grammatical relations, the problem of whether the passive requires a subject category, the relation between subjecthood and definiteness, and the issue of how the loss of case and aspectual systems triggers the use of compensatory mechanisms in heritage Russian.

Historical Linguistics 2017

Historical Linguistics 2017 PDF Author: Bridget Drinka
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027261679
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
The collected articles in this volume address an array of cutting-edge issues in the field of historical linguistics, including new theoretical approaches and innovative methodologies for studying language through a diachronic lens. The articles focus on the following themes: I. Case & Argument Structure, II. Alignment & Diathesis, III. Patterns, Paradigms, & Restructuring, IV. Grammaticalization & Construction Grammar, V. Corpus Linguistics & Morphosyntax, VI. Languages in Contact. Papers reflect a wide range of perspectives, and focus on issues and data from an array of languages and language families, from new analyses of case and argument structure in Ancient Greek to phonological evidence for language contact in Vietnamese, from patterns of convergence in Neo-Aramaic to the development of the ergative in Basque. The volume contributes substantially to the debate surrounding core issues of language change: the role of the individual speaker, the nature of paths of grammaticalization, the role of contact, the interface of diachrony and synchrony, and many other issues. It should be useful to any reader hoping to gain insight into the nature of language change.

Non-nominative Subjects

Non-nominative Subjects PDF Author: Peri Bhaskararao
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229717
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Volume 2 of Non-nominative Subjects (NNSs) presents the most recent research on this topic from a wide range of languages from diverse language families of the world, with ample data and in-depth analysis. A significant feature of these volumes is that authors with different theoretical perspectives study the intricate questions raised by these constructions. Some of the central issues include the subject properties of noun phrases with ergative, dative, accusative and genitive case, case assignment and checking, anaphor–antecedent coreference, the nature of predicates with NNSs, whether they are volitional or non-volitional, possibilities of control coreference and agreement phenomena. These analyses have significant implications for theories of syntax and verbal semantics, first language acquisition of NNSs, convergence of case marking patterns in language contact situations, and the nature of syntactic change.