Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions

Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions PDF Author: Carol Lord
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027276854
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This work examines both historical and comparative evidence in documenting the sweep of diachronic change in the context of serial verb constructions. Using a wide range of data from languages of West Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, it demonstrates how shifts in meaning and usage result in syntactic, morphological and lexical change. The process by which verbs lose lexical semantic content and develop case-marking functions is described; it is argued that the change is directional, from verb to preposition (or postposition) to affix, along a grammaticalization continuum. This same grammaticalization process is shown to result in the development of complementizers, adverbial subordinators, conjunctions, adverbs and auxiliaries from verbs. Strong parallels across languages are found in the meanings of the verbs that become “defective” and in the functions they come to mark. The changes are documented in detail, with examples from a number of languages illustrating the effect of the changes on typology and word order, implications for the encoding of definiteness and aspect, and the relevance of notions such as discourse topic, foreground and transitivity. With respect to theoretical assumptions and terminology, the author has taken a relatively nonpartisan approach, and the discussion is accessible to students of language as well as of interest to theoreticians.

Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions

Historical Change in Serial Verb Constructions PDF Author: Carol Lord
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027276854
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book Here

Book Description
This work examines both historical and comparative evidence in documenting the sweep of diachronic change in the context of serial verb constructions. Using a wide range of data from languages of West Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, it demonstrates how shifts in meaning and usage result in syntactic, morphological and lexical change. The process by which verbs lose lexical semantic content and develop case-marking functions is described; it is argued that the change is directional, from verb to preposition (or postposition) to affix, along a grammaticalization continuum. This same grammaticalization process is shown to result in the development of complementizers, adverbial subordinators, conjunctions, adverbs and auxiliaries from verbs. Strong parallels across languages are found in the meanings of the verbs that become “defective” and in the functions they come to mark. The changes are documented in detail, with examples from a number of languages illustrating the effect of the changes on typology and word order, implications for the encoding of definiteness and aspect, and the relevance of notions such as discourse topic, foreground and transitivity. With respect to theoretical assumptions and terminology, the author has taken a relatively nonpartisan approach, and the discussion is accessible to students of language as well as of interest to theoreticians.

Serial Verb Constructions

Serial Verb Constructions PDF Author: Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199279152
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
A serial verb construction is a sequence of verbs which acts together as one. This oustanding book is the first to study the phenomenon across languages of different typological and genetic profiles. The authors, all experienced linguistic fieldworkers, follow a unified typological approach and avoid formalisms.

Serial Verb Constructions

Serial Verb Constructions PDF Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191535400
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This volume of new work explores the forms and functions of serial verbs. The introduction sets out the cross-linguistic parameters of variation, and the final chapter draws out a set of conclusions. These frame fourteen explorations of serial verb constructions and similar structures in languages from Asia, Africa, North, Central and South America, and the Pacific. Chapters on well-known languages such as Cantonese and Thai are set alongside the languages of small hunter-gatherer and slash-and-burn agriculturalist groups. A serial verb construction (sometimes just called serial verb) is a sequence of verbs which acts together as one. Each describes what can be conceptualized as a single event. They are monoclausal; their intonational properties are those of a monoverbal clause; they generally have just one tense, aspect, mood, and polarity value; and they are an important tool in cognitive packaging of events. Serial verb constructions are a pervasive feature of isolating languages of Asia and West Africa, and are also found in the languages of the Pacific, South, Central and North America, most of them endangered. Serial verbs have been a subject of interest among linguists for some time. This outstanding book is the first to study the phenomenon across languages of different typological and genetic profiles. The authors, all experienced linguistic fieldworkers, follow a unified typological approach and avoid formalisms. The book will interest students, at graduate level and above, of syntax, typology, language universals, information structure, and language contact, in departments of linguistics and anthroplogy.

The Acquisition of Creole Languages

The Acquisition of Creole Languages PDF Author: Dany Adone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521199654
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The first study into how children acquire Creoles as their first language in the absence of a conventional language model.

Serial Verbs in White Hmong

Serial Verbs in White Hmong PDF Author: Nerida Jarkey
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900429239X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In Serial Verbs in White Hmong Nerida Jarkey investigates verb serialization, a highly productive grammatical strategy in this dynamic Southeast Asian language in which multiple verbs are simply concatenated within a single clause to depict a single event. The investigation identifies four major types of serial verb construction (SVC) in White Hmong and finds that the key function of all these types is to depict a single event in an elaborate and vivid way, a much-favoured method of description in this language. These findings concerning the nature and function of SVCs in White Hmong contribute to broader discussions on the nature of events as both cognitive and cultural constructs.

Multi-verb Constructions

Multi-verb Constructions PDF Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004194525
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This book surveys multi-verb constructions in multiple languages from the Americas, showing a very rich tapestry of typologically unusual constructions, including serial verbs, auxiliaries, co-verbs, phasal verbs. Where possible, a diachronic perspectrive is offered.

Thai: An Essential Grammar

Thai: An Essential Grammar PDF Author: Jay L. Nadeau
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317974573
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Praise for the First Edition “essential reading for any physical scientist who is interested in performing biological research.” ?Contemporary Physics "an ambitious text.... Each chapter contains protocols and the conceptual reasoning behind them, which is often useful to physicists performing biological experiments for the first time." –Physics Today This fully updated and expanded text is the best starting point for any student or researcher in the physical sciences to gain firm grounding in the techniques employed in molecular biophysics and quantitative biology. It includes brand new chapters on gene expression techniques, advanced techniques in biological light microscopy (super-resolution, two-photon, and fluorescence lifetime imaging), holography, and gold nanoparticles used in medicine. The author shares invaluable practical tips and insider’s knowledge to simplify potentially confusing techniques. The reader is guided through easy-to-follow examples carried out from start to finish with practical tips and insider’s knowledge. The emphasis is on building comfort with getting hands "wet" with basic methods and finally understanding when and how to apply or adapt them to address different questions. Jay L. Nadeau is a scientific researcher and head of the Biomedical Engineering in Advanced Applications of Quantum, Oscillatory, and Nanotechnological Systems (BEAAQONS) lab at Caltech and was previously associate professor of biomedical engineering and physics at McGill University.

Serial Verbs

Serial Verbs PDF Author: Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd
Publisher: Oxford Studies in Typology and
ISBN: 0198791267
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This book provides an in-depth typological account of the forms, functions, and histories of serial verb constructions, in which several verbs combine to form a single predicate. It uses an inductively-based framework for the analysis and draws on data from languages with different typological profiles and genetic affiliations.

Serial Verbs in Oceanic

Serial Verbs in Oceanic PDF Author: Terry Crowley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198241355
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Terry Crowley introduces the idea of serial verbs which are clauses that include multiple verbs or verb-like items that are used to convey a single meaning like wash the plates clean. The author argues that their formation is a consequence of contact between different languages.

The Syntax of Serial Verbs

The Syntax of Serial Verbs PDF Author: Mark Sebba
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 902725222X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This monograph is about the chains of verbs commonly found in Creole Languages, West African languages, in particular the Kwa sub-group of Niger-Congo, Chinese and certain other languages and have acquired the name of 'serial verbs' in the literature. As a case study, the serial constructions of Sranan, a creole language of Surinam with an English lexical base, are examined in detail.