Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages

Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages PDF Author: Enrique L. Palancar
Publisher: Brill's Studies in the Indigen
ISBN: 9789004467750
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
"As the first major survey of relative clause structure in the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, this volume comprises a collection of original, in-depth studies of relative constructions in representative languages from across Mexico and Central America, based on empirical data collected by the authors themselves. The studies not only reveal the complex and fascinating nature of relative clauses in the languages in question, but they also shed invaluable light on how Mesoamerica came to be one of the richest and most diverse linguistic areas on our planet. Contributors are: Eric Campbell, Claudine Chamoreau, Lucero Flores Nájera, Silviano Jiménez Jiménez, Óscar López Nicolás, Eladio (B'alam) Mateo Toledo, Enrique L. Palancar, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado"--

Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages

Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages PDF Author: Enrique L. Palancar
Publisher: Brill's Studies in the Indigen
ISBN: 9789004467750
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book Here

Book Description
"As the first major survey of relative clause structure in the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, this volume comprises a collection of original, in-depth studies of relative constructions in representative languages from across Mexico and Central America, based on empirical data collected by the authors themselves. The studies not only reveal the complex and fascinating nature of relative clauses in the languages in question, but they also shed invaluable light on how Mesoamerica came to be one of the richest and most diverse linguistic areas on our planet. Contributors are: Eric Campbell, Claudine Chamoreau, Lucero Flores Nájera, Silviano Jiménez Jiménez, Óscar López Nicolás, Eladio (B'alam) Mateo Toledo, Enrique L. Palancar, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado"--

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages PDF Author: Associate Professor of Linguistics Ivano Caponigro
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0197518370
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description
This volume constitutes the first in-depth, systematic study of varieties of headless relative clauses in fifteen languages from five language families, all Mesoamerican languages spoken in Mexico and Guatemala and one Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. Headless relative clauses are clauses that often resemble interrogative clauses or headed relative clauses in their morpho-syntactic shape, but whose meaning brings them close to nominal constructions. For the vastmajority of the languages in this volume, many of which are endangered and all of which are understudied, the work presented here represents the only published material on the subject.

Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas

Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas PDF Author: Bernard Comrie
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902720683X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Patterns of relative clause formation tend to vary according to the typological properties of a language. Highly polysynthetic languages tend to have fully nominalized relative clauses and no relative pronouns, while other typologically diverse languages tend to have relative clauses which are similar to main or independent clauses. Languages of the Americas, with their rich genetic diversity, have all been under the influence of European languages, whether Spanish, English or Portuguese, a situation that may be expected to have influenced their grammatical patterns. The present volume focuses on two tasks: The first deals with the discussion of functional principles related to relative clause formation: diachrony and paths of grammaticalization, simplicity vs. complexity, and formalization of rules to capture semantic-syntactic correlations. The second provides a typological overview of relative clauses in nine different languages going from north to south in the Americas.

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages PDF Author: Ivano Caponigro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197518400
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 579

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Book Description
Headless relative clauses have received little attention in the linguistic literature, despite the many morpho-syntactic and semantic puzzles they raise. These clauses have been even more neglected in the study of Mesoamerican languages. Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages constitutes the first in-depth, systematic study of the topic. Spanning fifteen languages from five language families, it is the broadest crosslinguistic study of headless relative clauses yet conducted. For most of these languages there is no previous descriptive or documentary material on wh-constructions in general, let alone headless relative clauses. Many of the languages are threatened or endangered; all are understudied. Each chapter in this volume constitutes an original contribution to typological and theoretical linguistics. The first chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the varieties of headless relative clauses and their importance to the study of human language, while the other chapters are language-specific and follow a uniform format to facilitate comparisons and generalizations across languages. Through the collective work of a team of twenty-one scholars, Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages presents a clear and systematic introduction to relative and interrogative clauses in Mesoamerican languages.

The Grammar of Time Reference in Yukatek Maya

The Grammar of Time Reference in Yukatek Maya PDF Author: Jürgen Bohnemeyer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anthropological linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description


African linguistics on the prairie

African linguistics on the prairie PDF Author: Jason Kandybowicz
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961100365
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
African Linguistics on the Prairie features select revised peer-reviewed papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Kansas. The articles in this volume reflect the enormous diversity of African languages, as they focus on languages from all of the major African language phyla. The articles here also reflect the many different research perspectives that frame the work of linguists in the Association for Contemporary African Linguistics. The diversity of views presented in this volume are thus indicative of the vitality of current African linguistics research. The work presented in this volume represents both descriptive and theoretical methodologies and covers fields ranging from phonetics, phonology, morphology, typology, syntax, and semantics to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, language acquisition, computational linguistics and beyond. This broad scope and the quality of the articles contained within holds out the promise of continued advancement in linguistic research on African languages.

The Structure of Language

The Structure of Language PDF Author: Emma L. Pavey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139488694
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
Most of the time we communicate using language without considering the complex activity we are undertaking, forming words and sentences in a split second. This book introduces the analysis of language structure, combining both description and theory within a single, practical text. It begins by examining words and parts of words, and then looks at how words work together to form sentences that communicate meaning. Sentence patterns across languages are also studied, looking at the similarities and the differences we find in how languages communicate meaning. The book also discusses how context can affect how we structure our sentences: the context of a particular language and its structures, the context of old and new information for us and our addressee(s), and the context of our culture.

Heritage Languages and Their Speakers

Heritage Languages and Their Speakers PDF Author: Maria Polinsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107047641
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
A pioneering study of heritage languages, from a leading scholar in this area of study world-wide.

Interactions of Degree and Quantification

Interactions of Degree and Quantification PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004431519
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Interactions of Degree and Quantification examines connections and semantic parallels between individual and degree quantifiers in the expression of quantity and measurement in human language.

The Acquisition of Complex Sentences

The Acquisition of Complex Sentences PDF Author: Holger Diessel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139454080
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences originates from simple non-embedded sentences and that two different developmental pathways can be distinguished: complex sentences including complement and relative clauses evolve from simple sentences that are gradually expanded to multiple-clause constructions, and complex sentences including adverbial and coordinate clauses develop from simple sentences that are integrated in a specific biclausal unit. He argues that the acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of the various complex sentences in the ambient language, the semantic and syntactic complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative functions of complex sentences, and the social-cognitive development of the child.