Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar 1

Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar 1 PDF Author: Sam A. Mchombo
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The study of Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa has provided the basis for significant contributions to research in linguistics. In recent years they have been used to advance morphological as well as syntactic theory, and in the study of interface relations in grammatical theory. The papers assembled in this volume, contributed by leading scholars in Bantu and general linguistics, deal with various aspects of the structure of Bantu languages. Sam A. Mchombo is assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar 1

Theoretical Aspects of Bantu Grammar 1 PDF Author: Sam A. Mchombo
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The study of Bantu languages of sub-Saharan Africa has provided the basis for significant contributions to research in linguistics. In recent years they have been used to advance morphological as well as syntactic theory, and in the study of interface relations in grammatical theory. The papers assembled in this volume, contributed by leading scholars in Bantu and general linguistics, deal with various aspects of the structure of Bantu languages. Sam A. Mchombo is assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

An Introduction to African Languages

An Introduction to African Languages PDF Author: G. Tucker Childs
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027295883
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This book introduces beginning students and non-specialists to the diversity and richness of African languages. In addition to providing a solid background to the study of African languages, the book presents linguistic phenomena not found in European languages. A goal of this book is to stimulate interest in African languages and address the question: What makes African languages so fascinating? The orientation adopted throughout the book is a descriptive one, which seeks to characterize African languages in a relatively succinct and neutral manner, and to make the facts accessible to a wide variety of readers. The author’s lengthy acquaintance with the continent and field experiences in western, eastern, and southern Africa allow for both a broad perspective and considerable depth in selected areas. The original examples are often the author’s own but also come from other sources and languages not often referenced in the literature. This text also includes a set of sound files illustrating the phenomena under discussion, be they the clicks of Khoisan, talking drums, or the ideophones (words like English lickety-split) found almost everywhere, which will make this book a valuable resource for teacher and student alike.

The Syntax of Anaphoric Binding

The Syntax of Anaphoric Binding PDF Author: Mary Dalrymple
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language (CSLI)
ISBN: 9781881526063
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Mary Dalrymple provides a theory of the syntax of anaphoric binding, couched in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. Cross-linguistically, anaphoric elements vary a great deal. One finds long- and short-distance reflexives, sometimes within the same language; pronominals may require local noncoreference or coreference only with nonsubjects. Analyses of the syntax of anaphoric binding which have attempted to fit all languages into the mold of English are inadequate to account for the rich range of syntactic constraints that are attested. How, then, can the cross-linguistic regularities exhibited by anaphoric elements be captured, while at the same time accounting for the diversity that is found? Dalrymple shows that syntactic constraints on anaphoric binding can be expressed in terms of just three grammatical concepts: subject, predicate, and tense. These concepts define a set of complex constraints, combinations of which interact to predict the wide range of universally available syntactic conditions that anaphoric elements obey. Mary Dalrymple is a member of the research staff of the Natural Language Theory and Technology group at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax

The Blackwell Companion to Syntax PDF Author: Martin Everaert
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405178418
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 3575

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Book Description
*** Pre-Order The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, second edition, publishing December 2017. Find out more at www.companiontosyntax.com *** This long-awaited reference work marks the culmination of numerous years of research and international collaboration by the world's leading syntacticians. There exists no other comparable collection of research that documents the development of syntax in this way. Under the editorial direction of Martin Everaert and Henk van Riemsdijk, this 5 volume set comprises 70 case studies commissioned specifically for this volume. The 80 contributors are drawn from an international group of prestigious linguists, including Joe Emonds, Sandra Chung, Susan Rothstein, Adriana Belletti, Jim Huang, Howard Lasnik, and Marcel den Dikken, among many others. A unique collection of 70 newly-commissioned case studies, offering access to research completed over the last 40 years. Brings together the world’s leading syntacticians to provide a large and diverse number of case studies in the field. Explores a comprehensive range of syntax topics from an historical perspective. Investigates empirical domains which have been well-documented and which have played a prominent role in theoretical syntax at some stage in the development of generative grammar. Serves as a research tool for not only theoretical linguistics but also the various forms of applied linguistics. Contains an accessible alphabetical structure, with an index integral to each volume featuring keywords and key figures. Each multi-volume set is also accompanied by a CD Rom of the entire Companion. Like the prestigious Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics series, this multi-volume work, in the new The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Linguistics series, can be relied upon to deliver the quality and expertise with which Blackwell Publishing’s linguistics list is associated.

To be or not to be? The Verbum Substantivum from Synchronic, Diachronic and Typological Perspectives

To be or not to be? The Verbum Substantivum from Synchronic, Diachronic and Typological Perspectives PDF Author: Michail L. Kotin
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144388491X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The verbs of the 'to be'-group, also called verba substantiva, belong to the most enigmatic phenomena of the human language. Combining a distinct suppletivity of their conjugational forms in most languages with a striking semantic and functional ambiguity, as well as unique syntactic capabilities, they form a very specific class of linguistic entities. They can be referred to, without exaggeration, as one of the conceptually gravest and most "symptomatic" language formations. Typologically, the be-verbs demonstrate, on the one hand, a set of similar features in almost every language, which is excellent evidence of their universal validity. On the other hand, the differences between these verbs in various language groups and even in particular languages are remarkable proof of language relativism. Historically, the be-verbs show a sequence of relevant stages in their formal, semantic and syntactic developments, which in many aspects coincide with their typological and individual, "idioethnic" features and properties. One can trace, among other things, paths and mechanisms of their development and salient changes of their functions in language systems of different types. Especially important are also changes in the form and function of the be-verbs arising from language contact, for they indicate essential tendencies in the evolution of these entities accelerated by the influence of language interaction triggers. The contribution of to be-verbs to the morphology, semantics and syntax of the majority of the languages of the world is substantial from a number of perspectives, and these verbs belong to the most complex and simultaneously central entities of human language. For this reason their analysis must continually be synchronized with the newest results of general linguistic research. This volume, hence, describes and interprets the to be-verbs and constructions in the broad context of contemporary linguistic research, including synchrony, diachrony, diatopy, language contrast and typology.

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Linguistics

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Linguistics PDF Author: Shigeru Miyagawa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190208805
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Over the past twenty years or so, the work on Japanese within generative grammar has shifted from primarily using contemporary theory to describe Japanese to contributing directly to general theory, on top of producing extensive analyses of the language. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Linguistics captures the excitement that comes from answering the question, "What can Japanese say about Universal Grammar?" Each of the eighteen chapters takes up a topic in syntax, morphology, acquisition, processing, phonology, or information structure, and, first of all, lays out the core data, followed by critical discussion of the various approaches found in the literature. Each chapter ends with a section on how the study of the particular phenomenon in Japanese contributes to our knowledge of general linguistic theory. This book will be useful to students and scholars of linguistics who are interested in the latest studies on one of the most extensively studied languages within generative grammar.

On the Syntactic Composition of Manner and Motion

On the Syntactic Composition of Manner and Motion PDF Author: Maria Luisa Zubizarreta
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262265192
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This crosslinguistic study of the structure of motion predicates argues for the universal syntactic nature of the composition of manner and motion within the verbal constituent. In serial verb languages, manner and motion are overtly represented as two distinct morphosyntactic units, sequentially ordered. Zubizarreta and Oh argue that the same analysis into two units holds for nonserial verb languages, albeit at a more abstract level. They argue further that this abstract level is part of the syntactic component of the grammar.The authors support their argument with a wealth of empirical data and a discussion of significant theoretical issues. Unlike many books and articles that discuss the relation between constructional meaning and the lexicon, On the Syntactic Composition of Manner and Motion examines one phenomenon in detail: the articulation of manner and motion, in three distinct language families—Germanic, Korean, and Romance. The authors' defense of the syntactic approach to constructional meaning will be of interest to linguists and psycholinguists both inside and outside the generative tradition, and to scholars of Romance, Germanic, and Korean languages.

Contemporary Linguistic Parameters

Contemporary Linguistic Parameters PDF Author: Antonio Fabregas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472525906
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Parameters have lain at the core of linguistic research in the generative tradition for decades. The theoretical questions they have raised are deep and broad: this reference text investigates how contemporary linguistics has best tried to answer them. This book looks at how parameters might be properly defined and what their locus might be :lexical information, functional heads, the computational system, the phonological branch of the grammar. What kind of data forms trigger acquisition of a parameter? Are parameters necessary or can we study languages without making reference to them? The questions looked at are not just theoretical: how can a theory of parameters be used to help understand second language acquisition, and what contributions can it make to the study of language typology? This is the right time to gather all this information, dispersed in many different kinds of publications by single authors and groups, into one comprehensive volume.

Syntax - Theory and Analysis. Volume 2

Syntax - Theory and Analysis. Volume 2 PDF Author: Tibor Kiss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110363704
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.

The Linker in the Khoisan Languages

The Linker in the Khoisan Languages PDF Author: Chris Collins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190921390
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The linker introduces ("links") a variety of expressions into the verb phrase, including locatives, the second object of a double object construction, the second object of a causative, instruments, subject matter arguments, and adverbs. This volume collects together Chris Collins's published work on the linker in the Khoisan languages. Here, Collins offers a systematic description of the linker in ǂHoã, Ju|'hoan, N|uu, and to a lesser extent !Xoõ and |Xam. For each language, Collins illustrates various uses of the linker, drawing attention to cross-linguistic generalizations as well as to variation between the languages. The work presented in this volume should be of interest to researchers working in a wide variety of syntactic frameworks on different languages of the world.