Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories

Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories PDF Author: David Pesetsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026252502X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
A proposal for a radical new view of case morphology, supported by a detailed investigation of some of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar. In this book, David Pesetsky argues that the peculiarities of Russian nominal phrases provide significant clues concerning the syntactic side of morphological case. Pesetsky argues against the traditional view that case categories such as nominative or genitive have a special status in the grammar of human languages. Supporting his argument with a detailed analysis of a complex array of morpho-syntactic phenomena in the Russian noun phrase (with brief excursions to other languages), he proposes instead that the case categories are just part-of-speech features copied as morphology from head to dependent as syntactic structure is built. Pesetsky presents a careful investigation of one of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar, the morpho-syntax of noun phrases with numerals (including those traditionally called the paucals). He argues that these bewilderingly complex facts can be explained if case categories are viewed simply as parts of speech, assigned as morphology. Pesetsky's analysis is notable for offering a new theoretical perspective on some of the most puzzling areas of Russian grammar, a highly original account of nominal case that significantly affects our understanding of an important property of language.

Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories

Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories PDF Author: David Pesetsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026252502X
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
A proposal for a radical new view of case morphology, supported by a detailed investigation of some of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar. In this book, David Pesetsky argues that the peculiarities of Russian nominal phrases provide significant clues concerning the syntactic side of morphological case. Pesetsky argues against the traditional view that case categories such as nominative or genitive have a special status in the grammar of human languages. Supporting his argument with a detailed analysis of a complex array of morpho-syntactic phenomena in the Russian noun phrase (with brief excursions to other languages), he proposes instead that the case categories are just part-of-speech features copied as morphology from head to dependent as syntactic structure is built. Pesetsky presents a careful investigation of one of the thorniest topics in Russian grammar, the morpho-syntax of noun phrases with numerals (including those traditionally called the paucals). He argues that these bewilderingly complex facts can be explained if case categories are viewed simply as parts of speech, assigned as morphology. Pesetsky's analysis is notable for offering a new theoretical perspective on some of the most puzzling areas of Russian grammar, a highly original account of nominal case that significantly affects our understanding of an important property of language.

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change

Syntactic Features and the Limits of Syntactic Change PDF Author: Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198832583
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
This volume brings together the latest diachronic research on syntactic features and their role in restricting syntactic change. The chapters explore topics relating to all three domains of the clause as well as issues in methodology and modelling, drawing on data from a range of languages and dialects.

Semantics of Genitive Objects in Russian

Semantics of Genitive Objects in Russian PDF Author: Olga Kagan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400752245
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The genitive/accusative opposition in Slavic languages is a decades-old linguistic conundrum. Shedding new light on this perplexing object-case alternation in Russian, this volume analyzes two variants of genitive objects that alternate with accusative complements—the genitive of negation and the intensional genitive. The author contends that these variants are manifestations of the same phenomenon, and thus require an integrated analysis. Further, that the choice of case is sensitive to factors that fuse semantics and pragmatics, and that the genitive case is assigned to objects denoting properties at the same time as they lack commitment to existence. Kagan’s subtle analysis accounts for the complex relations between case-marking and other properties, such as definiteness, specificity, number and aspect. It also reveals a correlation between the genitive case and the subjunctive mood, and relates her overarching subject matter to other instances of differential object-marking.

Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance

Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance PDF Author: Sam Wolfe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198841167
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
This volume offers a range of synchronic and diachronic case studies in comparative Germanic and Romance morphosyntax. These two language families, spoken by over a billion people today, have played a central role in linguistic research, but many significant questions remain about the relationship between them. Following an introduction that sets out the methodological, empirical, and theoretical background to the book, the volume is divided into three parts that deal with the morphosyntax of subjects and the inflectional layer; inversion, discourse pragmatics, and the left periphery; and continuity and variation beyond the clause. The contributors adopt a diverse range of approaches, making use of the latest digitized corpora and presenting a mixture of well-known and under-studied data from standard and non-standard Germanic and Romance languages. Many of the chapters challenge received wisdom about the relationship between these two important language families. The volume will be an indispensable resource for researchers and students in the fields of Germanic and Romance linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics, and morphosyntax.

Morphology-Semantics Mismatches and the Nature of Grammatical Features

Morphology-Semantics Mismatches and the Nature of Grammatical Features PDF Author: Peter W. Smith
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501511122
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Hybrid nouns have a morphological shape that doesn’t match their semantic interpretation. Such nouns pose clear and interesting questions for the nature of grammatical features. For instance, how does a single feature contribute distinct information values to different components of the grammar? Furthermore, what does this observation reveal about the syntax, often taken to mediate between the morphology and the semantics? This book studies hybrid nouns and argues that a single grammatical feature is comprised of two halves, a semantic half and a morphological half, that coexist in the syntax before being sent to the respective interfaces. Viewing features in this way allows us a new look at numerous types of hybrid nouns, such as Imposter constructions, nouns of collection, as well as nouns like ‘furniture’ that straddle the mass-count distinction. Moreover, the study of the agreement patterns of hybrid nouns shows that semantic features behave differently to morphological features under agreement, providing a novel insight into the nature of the mechanism that underlies morphosyntactic agreement.

Diminutives across Languages, Theoretical Frameworks and Linguistic Domains

Diminutives across Languages, Theoretical Frameworks and Linguistic Domains PDF Author: Stela Manova
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311079294X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This volume addresses a number of issues in current morphological theory from the point of view of diminutive formation, such as the role of phonology in diminutives and hypocoristics and consequently its place in the overall architecture of grammar, i.e. phonology-first versus syntax/morphology-first theoretical analyses, diminutives in the L1 acquisition of typologically diverse languages, and the borrowing of non-diminutive morphology for the expression of diminutive meanings, among others. Among the peculiarities of diminutive morphology discussed are the relation between diminutives and mass nouns, the avoidance of diminutives in plural contexts in some languages, and the relatively frequent semantic bleaching and reanalysis of diminutive forms cross-linguistically. Special attention is paid to the debate on the head versus modifier status of diminutive affixes (corresponding to high versus low diminutives in alternative analyses), with data from spoken and sign languages. Overall, the volume addresses a number of topics that will be of interest to scholars of almost all linguistic subfields and per

Variable Properties in Language

Variable Properties in Language PDF Author: David W. Lightfoot
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1626166641
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
This edited volume, based on papers presented at the 2017 Georgetown University Round Table on Language and Linguistics (GURT), approaches the study of language variation from a variety of angles. Language variation research asks broad questions such as, "Why are languages' grammatical structures different from one another?" as well as more specific word-level questions such as, "Why are words that are pronounced differently still recognized to be the same words?" Too often, research on variation has been siloed based on the particular question—sociolinguists do not talk to historical linguists, who do not talk to phoneticians, and so on. This edited volume seeks to bring discussions from different subfields of linguistics together to explore language variation in a broader sense and acknowledge the complexity and interwoven nature of variation itself.

Syntactic architecture and its consequences III

Syntactic architecture and its consequences III PDF Author: András Bárány
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3985540047
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
This volume collects novel contributions to comparative generative linguistics that “rethink” existing approaches to an extensive range of phenomena, domains, and architectural questions in linguistic theory. At the heart of the contributions is the tension between descriptive and explanatory adequacy which has long animated generative linguistics and which continues to grow thanks to the increasing amount and diversity of data available to us. The chapters develop novel insights into a number of core syntactic phenomena, such as the structure of and variation in diathesis, alignment types, case and agreement splits, and the syntax of null elements. Many of these contributions show the influence of research by Ian Roberts and collaborators and they provide varied perspectives on current research in synchronic and diachronic comparative syntax.

The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages

The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages PDF Author: María J. Arche
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192565427
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This volume presents a crosslinguistic survey of the current theoretical debates around copular constructions from a generative perspective. Following an introduction to the main questions surrounding the analysis and categorization of copulas, the chapters address a range of key topics including the existence of more than one copular form in certain languages, the factors determining the presence or absence of a copula, and the morphology of copular forms. The team of expert contributors present new theoretical proposals regarding the formal mechanisms behind the behaviour and patterns observed in copulas in a wide range of typologically diverse languages, including Czech, French, Korean, and languages from the Dene and Bantu families. Their findings have implications beyond the study of copulas and shed more light on issues such as agreement relations, the nature of grammatical categories, and nominal predicates in syntax and semantics.

Questions of Syntax

Questions of Syntax PDF Author: Richard S. Kayne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190863617
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
There are far more syntactically distinct languages than we might have thought; yet there are far fewer than there might have been. Questions of Syntax collects sixteen papers authored by Richard S. Kayne, a preeminent theoretical syntactician, who has sought over the course of his career to understand why both these facts are true. With a particular emphasis on comparative syntax, these chapters collectively consider how wide a range of questions the field of syntax can reasonably attempt to ask and then answer. At issue, among other topics, are the relation between syntax and (certain aspects of) semantics, the relation between syntax and what appear to be lexical questions, the relation between syntax and morphology, the relation between syntax and certain aspects of phonology (insofar as silent elements and their properties play a substantial role), and the extent to which comparative syntax can provide new and decisive evidence bearing on these different kinds of questions. To Kayne, comparative syntax can shed light on what may initially seem lexical questions, and antisymmetry on the evolution of human language itself. Taken as a whole, these essays elucidate the theoretical contributions of one the most influential scholars in linguistics.