Author: Mark Donohue
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191528781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
Semantic alignment refers to a type of language that has two means of morphosyntactically encoding the arguments of intransitive predicates, typically treating these as an agent or as a patient of a transitive predicate, or else by a means of a treatment that varies according to lexical aspect. This collection of new typological and case studies is the first book-length investigation of semantically aligned languages for three decades. Leading international typologists explore the differences and commonalities of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of these languages to languages without them. They look at how such systems arise or disappear and provide areal overviews of Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, the areas where semantically aligned languages are concentrated. This book will interest typological and historical linguists at graduate level and above.
The Typology of Semantic Alignment
Author: Mark Donohue
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191528781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
Semantic alignment refers to a type of language that has two means of morphosyntactically encoding the arguments of intransitive predicates, typically treating these as an agent or as a patient of a transitive predicate, or else by a means of a treatment that varies according to lexical aspect. This collection of new typological and case studies is the first book-length investigation of semantically aligned languages for three decades. Leading international typologists explore the differences and commonalities of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of these languages to languages without them. They look at how such systems arise or disappear and provide areal overviews of Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, the areas where semantically aligned languages are concentrated. This book will interest typological and historical linguists at graduate level and above.
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191528781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 483
Book Description
Semantic alignment refers to a type of language that has two means of morphosyntactically encoding the arguments of intransitive predicates, typically treating these as an agent or as a patient of a transitive predicate, or else by a means of a treatment that varies according to lexical aspect. This collection of new typological and case studies is the first book-length investigation of semantically aligned languages for three decades. Leading international typologists explore the differences and commonalities of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of these languages to languages without them. They look at how such systems arise or disappear and provide areal overviews of Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, the areas where semantically aligned languages are concentrated. This book will interest typological and historical linguists at graduate level and above.
The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity
Author: Jessica Coon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191059781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1328
Book Description
This volume offers theoretical and descriptive perspectives on the issues pertaining to ergativity, a grammatical patterning whereby direct objects are in some way treated like intransitive subjects, to the exclusion of transitive subjects. This pattern differs markedly from nominative/accusative marking whereby transitive and intransitive subjects are treated as one grammatical class, to the exclusion of direct objects. While ergativity is sometimes referred to as a typological characteristic of languages, research on the phenomenon has shown that languages do not fall clearly into one category or the other and that ergative characteristics are not consistent across languages. Chapters in this volume look at approaches to ergativity within generative, typological, and functional paradigms, as well as approaches to the core morphosyntactic building blocks of an ergative construction; related constructions such as the anti-passive; related properties such as split ergativity and word order; and extensions and permutations of ergativity, including nominalizations and voice systems. The volume also includes results from experimental investigations of ergativity, a relatively new area of research. A wide variety of languages are represented, both in the theoretical chapters and in the 16 case studies that are more descriptive in nature, attesting to both the pervasiveness and diversity of ergative patterns.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191059781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1328
Book Description
This volume offers theoretical and descriptive perspectives on the issues pertaining to ergativity, a grammatical patterning whereby direct objects are in some way treated like intransitive subjects, to the exclusion of transitive subjects. This pattern differs markedly from nominative/accusative marking whereby transitive and intransitive subjects are treated as one grammatical class, to the exclusion of direct objects. While ergativity is sometimes referred to as a typological characteristic of languages, research on the phenomenon has shown that languages do not fall clearly into one category or the other and that ergative characteristics are not consistent across languages. Chapters in this volume look at approaches to ergativity within generative, typological, and functional paradigms, as well as approaches to the core morphosyntactic building blocks of an ergative construction; related constructions such as the anti-passive; related properties such as split ergativity and word order; and extensions and permutations of ergativity, including nominalizations and voice systems. The volume also includes results from experimental investigations of ergativity, a relatively new area of research. A wide variety of languages are represented, both in the theoretical chapters and in the 16 case studies that are more descriptive in nature, attesting to both the pervasiveness and diversity of ergative patterns.
The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax
Author: Adam Ledgeway
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316720586
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1321
Book Description
Change is an inherent feature of all aspects of language, and syntax is no exception. While the synchronic study of syntax allows us to make discoveries about the nature of syntactic structure, the study of historical syntax offers even greater possibilities. Over recent decades, the study of historical syntax has proven to be a powerful scientific tool of enquiry with which to challenge and reassess hypotheses and ideas about the nature of syntactic structure which go beyond the observed limits of the study of the synchronic syntax of individual languages or language families. In this timely Handbook, the editors bring together the best of recent international scholarship on historical syntax. Each chapter is focused on a theme rather than an individual language, allowing readers to discover how systematic descriptions of historical data can profitably inform and challenge highly diverse sets of theoretical assumptions.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316720586
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1321
Book Description
Change is an inherent feature of all aspects of language, and syntax is no exception. While the synchronic study of syntax allows us to make discoveries about the nature of syntactic structure, the study of historical syntax offers even greater possibilities. Over recent decades, the study of historical syntax has proven to be a powerful scientific tool of enquiry with which to challenge and reassess hypotheses and ideas about the nature of syntactic structure which go beyond the observed limits of the study of the synchronic syntax of individual languages or language families. In this timely Handbook, the editors bring together the best of recent international scholarship on historical syntax. Each chapter is focused on a theme rather than an individual language, allowing readers to discover how systematic descriptions of historical data can profitably inform and challenge highly diverse sets of theoretical assumptions.
Impersonal Constructions
Author: Andre? L?vovich Mal?chukov
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027205914
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 653
Book Description
Features the contributions that deal with various types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates, presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality, and constructions with a notional subject lacking in referential properties.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027205914
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 653
Book Description
Features the contributions that deal with various types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates, presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality, and constructions with a notional subject lacking in referential properties.
A Grammar of Bunaq
Author: Antoinette Schapper
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110761149
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 622
Book Description
This is a comprehensive grammar of the Papuan language Bunaq as spoken in the district of Lamaknen. Bunaq belongs to the Timor-Alor-Pantar language family, which comprises the westernmost Papuan languages. Surrounded on all sides by Austronesian languages, Bunaq has developed in isolation from other members of the family, and as a result shows a range of unique morphosyntactic patterns. This grammar provides a detailed synchronic description of Bunaq based on a functional-typological approach. Following additional fieldwork and containing new material and analyses, this book is a thoroughly revised version of the author’s 2010 PhD thesis, which won the Pāṇini Award of the Association for Linguistic Typology.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110761149
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 622
Book Description
This is a comprehensive grammar of the Papuan language Bunaq as spoken in the district of Lamaknen. Bunaq belongs to the Timor-Alor-Pantar language family, which comprises the westernmost Papuan languages. Surrounded on all sides by Austronesian languages, Bunaq has developed in isolation from other members of the family, and as a result shows a range of unique morphosyntactic patterns. This grammar provides a detailed synchronic description of Bunaq based on a functional-typological approach. Following additional fieldwork and containing new material and analyses, this book is a thoroughly revised version of the author’s 2010 PhD thesis, which won the Pāṇini Award of the Association for Linguistic Typology.
Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics
Author: Nikolas Gisborne
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269602
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
Cognitive linguistics has an honourable tradition of paying respect to naturally occurring language data and there have been fruitful interactions between corpus data and aspects of linguistic structure and meaning. More recently, dialect data and sociolinguistic data collection methods/theoretical concepts have started to generate interest. There has also been an increase in several kinds of experimental work. However, not all linguistic data is simply naturally occurring or derived from experiments with statistically robust samples of speakers. Other traditions, especially the generative tradition, have fruitfully used introspection and questions about the grammaticality of different strings to uncover patterns which might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The divide between generative and cognitive approaches to language is intimately connected to the kinds of data drawn on, and the way in which generalisations are derived from these data. The papers in this volume explore these issues through the lens of synchronic linguistic analysis, the study of language change, typological investigation and experimental study. Originally published in Studies in Language Vol. 36:3 (2012).
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269602
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
Cognitive linguistics has an honourable tradition of paying respect to naturally occurring language data and there have been fruitful interactions between corpus data and aspects of linguistic structure and meaning. More recently, dialect data and sociolinguistic data collection methods/theoretical concepts have started to generate interest. There has also been an increase in several kinds of experimental work. However, not all linguistic data is simply naturally occurring or derived from experiments with statistically robust samples of speakers. Other traditions, especially the generative tradition, have fruitfully used introspection and questions about the grammaticality of different strings to uncover patterns which might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The divide between generative and cognitive approaches to language is intimately connected to the kinds of data drawn on, and the way in which generalisations are derived from these data. The papers in this volume explore these issues through the lens of synchronic linguistic analysis, the study of language change, typological investigation and experimental study. Originally published in Studies in Language Vol. 36:3 (2012).
Alignment and Alignment Change in the Indo-European Family
Author: Eystein Dahl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192599771
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
This volume brings together work from leading specialists in Indo-European languages to explore the macro- and micro-dynamic factors that contribute to variation and change in alignment and argument realization. Alignment is taken to include both basic alignment patterns associated with major construction types, as well as various valency-decreasing constructions such as passives, anticausatives, and impersonals. The chapters explore synchronic and diachronic aspects of alignment morphosyntax based on data from Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italic, Armenian, and Slavic. All have a strong empirical focus, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative methods, and range from broad comparative studies to detailed investigations of specific constructions in individual languages. The book is one of very few studies to examine variation and change in alignment typology across languages in a single family. It contributes to a greater understanding of the roles played by analogy/extension, reanalysis, and areal factors in alignment change, and demonstrates the extent of variation found in the morphosyntax of argument realization in genetically-related languages.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192599771
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
This volume brings together work from leading specialists in Indo-European languages to explore the macro- and micro-dynamic factors that contribute to variation and change in alignment and argument realization. Alignment is taken to include both basic alignment patterns associated with major construction types, as well as various valency-decreasing constructions such as passives, anticausatives, and impersonals. The chapters explore synchronic and diachronic aspects of alignment morphosyntax based on data from Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italic, Armenian, and Slavic. All have a strong empirical focus, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative methods, and range from broad comparative studies to detailed investigations of specific constructions in individual languages. The book is one of very few studies to examine variation and change in alignment typology across languages in a single family. It contributes to a greater understanding of the roles played by analogy/extension, reanalysis, and areal factors in alignment change, and demonstrates the extent of variation found in the morphosyntax of argument realization in genetically-related languages.
Understanding Syntax
Author: Maggie Tallerman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429516746
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
Assuming no prior grammatical knowledge, Understanding Syntax explains and illustrates the major concepts, categories and terminology involved in the study of cross-linguistic syntax. Taking a theory-neutral and descriptive viewpoint throughout, this book: introduces syntactic typology, syntactic description and the major typological categories found in the languages of the world; clarifies with examples grammatical constructions and relationships between words in a clause, including word classes and their syntactic properties; grammatical relations such as subject and object; case and agreement processes; passives; questions and relative clauses; features in-text and chapter-end exercises to extend the reader’s knowledge of syntactic concepts and argumentation, drawing on data from over 100 languages; highlights the principles involved in writing a brief syntactic sketch of language. This fifth edition has been revised and updated to include extended exercises in all chapters, updated further readings, and more extensive checklists for students. Accompanying e-resources have also been updated to include hints for instructors and additional links to further reading. Understanding Syntax is an essential textbook for students studying the description of language, cross-linguistic syntax, language typology and linguistic fieldwork.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429516746
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 389
Book Description
Assuming no prior grammatical knowledge, Understanding Syntax explains and illustrates the major concepts, categories and terminology involved in the study of cross-linguistic syntax. Taking a theory-neutral and descriptive viewpoint throughout, this book: introduces syntactic typology, syntactic description and the major typological categories found in the languages of the world; clarifies with examples grammatical constructions and relationships between words in a clause, including word classes and their syntactic properties; grammatical relations such as subject and object; case and agreement processes; passives; questions and relative clauses; features in-text and chapter-end exercises to extend the reader’s knowledge of syntactic concepts and argumentation, drawing on data from over 100 languages; highlights the principles involved in writing a brief syntactic sketch of language. This fifth edition has been revised and updated to include extended exercises in all chapters, updated further readings, and more extensive checklists for students. Accompanying e-resources have also been updated to include hints for instructors and additional links to further reading. Understanding Syntax is an essential textbook for students studying the description of language, cross-linguistic syntax, language typology and linguistic fieldwork.
A Grammar of Nama
Author: Jeff Siegel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111077012
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Nama is a Papuan language spoken by around 1200 people in the Morehead district of southern New Guinea. It is a member of the Nambu subgroup of the Yam family of languages (also known as the Morehead-Upper Maro family). This grammar is the first published comprehensive description of a language in this subgroup. Nama has an interesting complex morphology with 21 nominal suffixes (17 case-marking) and 31 verbal prefixes and suffixes, indexing arguments (person/number) and indicating tense (current, recent, remote) and aspect (perfective/imperfective, inceptive, punctual, delimited, durative). Nama also has some linguistic features that are either very rare or not attested in other languages.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111077012
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Nama is a Papuan language spoken by around 1200 people in the Morehead district of southern New Guinea. It is a member of the Nambu subgroup of the Yam family of languages (also known as the Morehead-Upper Maro family). This grammar is the first published comprehensive description of a language in this subgroup. Nama has an interesting complex morphology with 21 nominal suffixes (17 case-marking) and 31 verbal prefixes and suffixes, indexing arguments (person/number) and indicating tense (current, recent, remote) and aspect (perfective/imperfective, inceptive, punctual, delimited, durative). Nama also has some linguistic features that are either very rare or not attested in other languages.
Indo-Aryan Ergativity in Typological and Diachronic Perspective
Author: Eystein Dahl
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267162
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of synchronic and diachronic dimensions of Ergativity in the Indo-Aryan language family. It contains an introduction drawing on the most important recent typological and theoretical contributions to this field, plus seven papers about the origin, development and distribution of ergative alignment in ancient and modern Indo-Aryan languages written by well-established expert authors. The articles provide detailed explorations of language-specific synchronic systems or patterns of change, and large-scale studies of the distribution of ergative morphosyntax across the Indo-Aryan languages. The papers have a typological-functional approach and are based on thorough fieldwork experience and/or philological investigation. As the Indo-Aryan language family has played a paramount role in recent theories of Ergativity and of alignment typology and change, this volume is highly relevant to experts working on these languages and to scholars interested in grammatical relations and it will figure in all future debates in these fields
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267162
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
This volume presents a state-of-the-art survey of synchronic and diachronic dimensions of Ergativity in the Indo-Aryan language family. It contains an introduction drawing on the most important recent typological and theoretical contributions to this field, plus seven papers about the origin, development and distribution of ergative alignment in ancient and modern Indo-Aryan languages written by well-established expert authors. The articles provide detailed explorations of language-specific synchronic systems or patterns of change, and large-scale studies of the distribution of ergative morphosyntax across the Indo-Aryan languages. The papers have a typological-functional approach and are based on thorough fieldwork experience and/or philological investigation. As the Indo-Aryan language family has played a paramount role in recent theories of Ergativity and of alignment typology and change, this volume is highly relevant to experts working on these languages and to scholars interested in grammatical relations and it will figure in all future debates in these fields