The Clause Structure of Wolof

The Clause Structure of Wolof PDF Author: Harold Torrence
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255814
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This volume investigates the clausal syntax of Wolof, an understudied Atlantic language of Senegal. The goals of the work are descriptive, analytical, and comparative, with a focus on the structure of the left periphery and left peripheral phenomena. The book includes detailed examination of the morpho?syntax of wh?questions, successive cyclicity, subject marking, relative clauses, topic/focus articulation, and complementizer agreement. Novel data from Wolof is used to evaluate and extend theoretical proposals concerning the structure of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) and Tense Phrase (TP). It is argued that Wolof provides evidence for the promotion analysis of relative clauses, an exploded CP and TP, and for analyses that treat relative clauses as composed of a determiner with a CP complement. It is further argued that Wolof has a set of silent wh?expressions and these are compared to superficially similar constructions in colloquial German, Bavarian, Dutch, and Norwegian. The book also presents a comparison of complementizer agreement across a number of related and unrelated languages. Data from Indo?European (Germanic varieties, French, Irish), Niger?Congo (Atlantic, Bantu, Gur), and Semitic (Arabic) languages put the Wolof phenomena in a larger typological context by showing the range of variation in complementizer agreement systems."

The Clause Structure of Wolof

The Clause Structure of Wolof PDF Author: Harold Torrence
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255814
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume investigates the clausal syntax of Wolof, an understudied Atlantic language of Senegal. The goals of the work are descriptive, analytical, and comparative, with a focus on the structure of the left periphery and left peripheral phenomena. The book includes detailed examination of the morpho?syntax of wh?questions, successive cyclicity, subject marking, relative clauses, topic/focus articulation, and complementizer agreement. Novel data from Wolof is used to evaluate and extend theoretical proposals concerning the structure of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) and Tense Phrase (TP). It is argued that Wolof provides evidence for the promotion analysis of relative clauses, an exploded CP and TP, and for analyses that treat relative clauses as composed of a determiner with a CP complement. It is further argued that Wolof has a set of silent wh?expressions and these are compared to superficially similar constructions in colloquial German, Bavarian, Dutch, and Norwegian. The book also presents a comparison of complementizer agreement across a number of related and unrelated languages. Data from Indo?European (Germanic varieties, French, Irish), Niger?Congo (Atlantic, Bantu, Gur), and Semitic (Arabic) languages put the Wolof phenomena in a larger typological context by showing the range of variation in complementizer agreement systems."

The Clause Structure of Wolof

The Clause Structure of Wolof PDF Author: Harold Torrence
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027273014
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume investigates the clausal syntax of Wolof, an understudied Atlantic language of Senegal. The goals of the work are descriptive, analytical, and comparative, with a focus on the structure of the left periphery and left peripheral phenomena. The book includes detailed examination of the morpho‑syntax of wh‑questions, successive cyclicity, subject marking, relative clauses, topic/focus articulation, and complementizer agreement. Novel data from Wolof is used to evaluate and extend theoretical proposals concerning the structure of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) and Tense Phrase (TP). It is argued that Wolof provides evidence for the promotion analysis of relative clauses, an “exploded” CP and TP, and for analyses that treat relative clauses as composed of a determiner with a CP complement. It is further argued that Wolof has a set of silent wh‑expressions and these are compared to superficially similar constructions in colloquial German, Bavarian, Dutch, and Norwegian. The book also presents a comparison of complementizer agreement across a number of related and unrelated languages. Data from Indo‑European (Germanic varieties, French, Irish), Niger‑Congo (Atlantic, Bantu, Gur), and Semitic (Arabic) languages put the Wolof phenomena in a larger typological context by showing the range of variation in complementizer agreement systems.

A Wolof Dictionary

A Wolof Dictionary PDF Author: Pamela Munro
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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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.

Cleft Structures

Cleft Structures PDF Author: Katharina Hartmann
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271127
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The phenomenon of clefts is beyond doubt a golden oldie. It has captivated linguists of different disciplines for decades. The fascination arises from the unique syntax of clefts in interaction with their pragmatic and semantic interpretation. Clefts structure sentences according to the information state of the constituents contained in them. They are special as they exhibit a rather uncommon syntactic form to achieve the separation of the prominent part, either focal or topical, from the background of the clause. Despite the long-lasting interest in clefts, linguists have not yet come to an agreement on many basic questions. The articles contained in this volume address these issues from new theoretical and empirical perspectives. Based on data from about 50 languages from all over the world, this volume presents new arguments for the proper derivation of clefts, and contributes to the ongoing debate on the information-structural impact of cleft structures. Theoretically, it combines modern syntactic theorizing with investigations at the interface between grammar and information-structure.

A Descriptive Grammar of Noon

A Descriptive Grammar of Noon PDF Author: Maria Soukka
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cangin languages
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Noon is a West-Atlantic language of the Cangin subgroup, spoken by 25 000 people in central Senegal, in and around the town of Thies. The aim of this study is to provide a full grammatical description of Noon, since no such study has been done on the language. We have not followed a specific linguistic model as framework, but rather tried to work from the classical approach of presenting the structures in the grammatical units of the language, from morphology to discourse, All analysis is presented with language examples from data collected in the Thies area over the years 1994-1998. The study is divided into 11 chapters, followed by a short interlinearised text sample with a free translation. The first chapter presents a brief overview of the phonology and the morphophonological processes that take place in affixation. Another important feature described in this section is the restricted regressive vowel harmony process, based on the ATR feature. In chapters 2-3, the nominal system is described, including the noun class system of 6 basic classes with which most nominals are in agreement. There is also a threefold locative distinction present in determined nominals. This locative distinction is further elaborated in the demonstratives. Chapter 4 treats prepositions and adverbs. In chapters 5-6, verbal morphology and the verb phrase are presented, A major feature of the Noon verb is the derivational affixation which, apart from carrying aspectual information, also has bearing on the valency of the verb. The conjugational system is based on affixation, but also on the use of auxiliaries and particles. Chapter 7 deals with conjunctions, particles and interjections, and chapter 8 treats clause structures: independent ones, both verbal and non-verbal, but also dependent clauses. In chapter 9, different simple sentence types are described, followed by the complex sentences, including serial and reduplicative types. Chapter 10 depicts some important features that occur on the discourse level such as the wider use of spatial deixis in temporal and textual references. Finally, in chapter 11 is presented a comparative view of some of the major dialect differences in Noon.

The Syntax of Relative Clauses

The Syntax of Relative Clauses PDF Author: Guglielmo Cinque
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110884605X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Relative clauses play a hugely important role in analysing the structure of sentences. This book provides the first evidence that a unified analysis of the different types of relative clauses is possible - a step forward in our understanding. Using careful analyses of a wide range of languages, Cinque argues that the relative clause types can all be derived from a single, double-headed, structure. He also presents evidence that restrictive, maximalizing, ('integrated') non-restrictive, kind-defining, infinitival and participial RCs merge at different heights of the nominal extended projection. This book provides an elegant generalization about the structure of all relatives. Theoretically profound and empirically rich, it promises to radically alter the way we think about this subject for years to come.

Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy

Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy PDF Author: Isabelle Bril
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027205884
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 645

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Book Description
This collective volume explores clause-linkage strategies in a cross-linguistic perspective with greater emphasis on subordination. Part I presents some theoretical reassessment of syntactic terminologies and distinctive criteria for subordination, as well as typological methods based on sets of variables and statistics allowing cross-linguistic comparability. Part II deals with strategies relating to clause-chaining, conjunctive conjugations, converbial constructions, masdars. Part III centers on the interaction between the syntax, pragmatics, and semantics of clause-linking and subordination, in relation to informa-tional structure, to referential hierarchy, and correlative constructions. Part IV presents insights in the clause-linking and subordinating functions of some T.A.M. markers, verbal inflectional morphology and conjugation systems, which may also interact with informa-tional hierarchy, via the backgrounding effects and lack of illocutionary force of some aspect and mood forms. The volume is of particular interest to linguists and typologists working on clause-linkage systems and on the interface between syntax, pragmatics, and semantics.

Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German

Clause Structure and Word Order in the History of German PDF Author: Agnes Jäger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543075
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
This volume presents the first comprehensive generative account of the historical syntax of German. Leading scholars in the field survey a range of topics and offer new insights into central aspects of clause structure and word order, outlining the different stages of their historical development. Each chapter combines a solid empirical basis with descriptive generalizations, supported by a detailed discussion of theoretical analyses couched in the generative framework. Reference is also made throughout to the more traditional descriptive model of the German clause. The volume is divided into three parts that correspond to the main parts of the clause. Part I explores the left periphery, looking at verb placement (verb second and competing orders), the prefield, and adverbial connectives, while Part II discusses the middle field, including pronominal syntax, the order of full NPs, and the history of negation. The final part examines the right periphery with chapters covering basic word order (OV/VO), prosodic and information-structural factors, and the verbal complex. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students in historical syntax and the Germanic languages, and for both descriptive and theoretical linguists alike.

Challenging Clitics

Challenging Clitics PDF Author: Christine Meklenborg Salvesen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271941
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Challenging Clitics deals with multiple sides of cliticisation from different theoretical frameworks and with data from a number of different languages. Unlike many other books on clitics where clitics are considered from a mere syntactical point of view, this book also discusses the acquisition of clitics; the role of the PF in cliticisation; the morphophonological aspects of cliticisation; and historical change – to name but a few of the approaches presented. As such this collection presents cutting edge theoretical considerations as well as new data on clitics. Taken together, the contributions in this volume not only provide insight into the extremely complex nature of clitics, but also into derivations and structures in language that go beyond the study of clitics themselves.