Reconstructing Grammar

Reconstructing Grammar PDF Author: Spike Gildea
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229458
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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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.

Reconstructing Grammar

Reconstructing Grammar PDF Author: Spike Gildea
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229458
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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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.

On Reconstructing Grammar

On Reconstructing Grammar PDF Author: Spike Gildea
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195109528
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book shows how to combine grammaticalization theory with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of Proto-Languages. To showcase the methodology, seven morphosyntactically distinct verbal systems in the Cariban family--three ergative, three nominative, and one inverse--are reconstructed. Spike Gildea presents detailed data in his reconstruction of Proto-Carib verbal and nominal morphologies. The inverse verbal system reconstructs to Proto-Carib; the other six are innovative, and reconstruct to Proto-Carib nonfinite source-constructions.

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.

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.

Deconstructing and Reconstructing Sentences

Deconstructing and Reconstructing Sentences PDF Author: Joseph Gansrow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634499347
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Designed to target the deficiencies in students’ writing and reading abilities, this easy-to-use workbook and quick reference guide provides concise explanations and ample practice with core principles of grammar and style. Because it’s a workbook, it affords users the opportunity for targeted practice and enrichment; since it’s also a mini-reference manual, it serves as a vehicle for building a coherent writing and reading curriculum.

A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages

A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages PDF Author: R.D. Fulk
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027263132
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Fulk’s Comparative Grammar offers an overview of and bibliographical guide to the study of the phonology and the inflectional morphology of the earliest Germanic languages, with particular attention to Gothic, Old Norse / Icelandic, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and Old High German, along with some attention to the more sparsely attested languages. The sounds and inflections of the oldest Germanic languages are compared, with a view to reconstructing the forms they took in Proto-Germanic and comparing those reconstructed forms with what is known of the Indo-European protolanguage. Students will find the book an informative introduction and a bibliographically instructive point of departure for intensive research in the numerous issues that remain profoundly contested in early Germanic language history.

New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin

New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin PDF Author: Andrew L Sihler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199706425
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 711

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Book Description
Like Carl Darling Buck's Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European. The only way to make a reconstructed language like Proto-Indo-European intelligible and intellectually defensible is to present at least some of the basis for reconstructing its features and, in the process, to discuss reasoning and methodology of reconstruction (including a weighing of alternative reconstructions). The result is a compendious handbook of Indo-European phonology and morphology, and a vade mecum of Indo-European linguistics--the focus always remaining on Greek and Latin. The non-classical sources for historical discussion are mainly Vedic Sanskrit, Hittite, and Germanic, with occasional but crucial contributions from Old Irish, Avestan, Baltic, and Slavic.

Reconstructing Syntax

Reconstructing Syntax PDF Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: Brill's Studies in Historical
ISBN: 9789004391994
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
"During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot's (2002: 625) conclusion: "[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we'll eat the pudding." This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax"--

Historical and Comparative Linguistics

Historical and Comparative Linguistics PDF Author: Raimo Anttila
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027235562
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
In any course of historical and comparative linguistics there will be students of different language backgrounds, different levels of linguistic training, and different theoretical orientation. This textbook attempts to mitigate the problems raised by this heterogeneity in a number of ways. Since it is impossible to treat the language or language family of special interest to every student, the focus of this book is on English in particular and Indo-European languages in general, with Finnish and its closely related languages for contrast. The tenets of different schools of linguistics, and the controversies among them, are treated eclectically and objectively; the examination of language itself plays the leading role in our efforts to ascertain the comparative value of competing theories. This revised edition (1989) of a standard work for comparative linguists offers an added introduction dealing mainly with a semiotic basis of change, a final chapter on aspects of explanation, particularly in historical and human disciplines, and added sections on comparative syntax and on the semiotic status of the comparative method.

Linguistic Reconstruction

Linguistic Reconstruction PDF Author: Anthony Fox
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 9780198700012
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
"Anthony Fox's new textbook is primarily for students with an elementary knowledge of general linguistics who need an up-to-date introduction to historical linguistics, particularly to new developments in the theory and practice of linguistic reconstruction." -- Back cover.