The Typology of Semantic Alignment

The Typology of Semantic Alignment PDF Author: Mark Donohue
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199238383
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Leading scholars explore the characteristics of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of languages with and without them, with special reference to Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, where semantically aligned languages are concentrated.

The Typology of Semantic Alignment

The Typology of Semantic Alignment PDF Author: Mark Donohue
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199238383
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book

Book Description
Leading scholars explore the characteristics of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of languages with and without them, with special reference to Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, where semantically aligned languages are concentrated.

The Typology of Semantic Alignment

The Typology of Semantic Alignment PDF Author: Mark Donohue
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191528781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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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.

FYI. Theory and typology of information packaging

FYI. Theory and typology of information packaging PDF Author: Niels Smit
Publisher: Niels Smit
ISBN: 9085705096
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description


Advances in Research on Semantic Roles

Advances in Research on Semantic Roles PDF Author: Seppo Kittilä
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266794
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Especially in functional-typological linguistics, semantic roles have been studied thoroughly, because they constitute a good starting point for any study on argument marking due to their semantically defined nature. However, the very concept of semantic roles is far from being without problems, and there is still no consensus on how the roles are best defined. In this volume, the notion will be discussed from novel perspectives with the aim of providing new insights into our understanding of semantic roles. Two of the papers deal with semantic role clusters, one with semantic roles in verbless constructions, one with diachrony of semantic roles and two with individual semantic roles that have not been studied in too much detail in previous studies. The book may not offer answers to all questions the readers may have, but at least it raises interesting further questions relevant to arriving at a better understanding of semantic roles. Originally published in Studies in Language Vol. 38:3 (2014).

The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects

The Diachronic Typology of Non-Canonical Subjects PDF Author: Ilja A. Serzant
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027271305
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This volume is an important contribution to the diachrony of non-canonical subjects in a typological perspective. The questions addressed concern the internal mechanisms and triggers for various changes that non-canonical subjects undergo, ranging from semantic motivations to purely structural explanations. The discussion encompasses the whole life-cycle of non-canonical subjects: from their emergence out of non-subject arguments to their expansion, demise or canonicization, focusing primarily on syntactic changes and changes in case-marking. The volume offers a number of different case studies comprising such languages as Italian, Spanish, Old Norse and Russian as well as languages less studied in this context, such as Latin, Classical Armenian, Baltic languages and some East Caucasian languages. Typological generalizations in the form of recurrent developmental paths are offered on the basis of data presented in this volume and in the literature.

Impersonal Constructions

Impersonal Constructions PDF Author: Andre? L?vovich Mal?chukov
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027205914
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 653

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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.

Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics

Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics PDF Author: Nikolas Gisborne
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269602
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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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).

The Dynamics of Nominal Classification

The Dynamics of Nominal Classification PDF Author: Ruth Singer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1614513694
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The use of grammatical gender in the Australian language Mawng calls into question prevailing ideas about the functions of nominal classification systems. Mawng’s gender system has a strong semantic basis and plays an important role in the construction of meaning in discourse. Gender agreement in verbs is frequently lexicalized, creating idioms called lexicalised agreement verbs that are structurally similar to noun-verb idioms. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in nominal classification or cross-linguistic approaches to idioms.

Introducing the Framework, and Case Studies from Africa and Eurasia

Introducing the Framework, and Case Studies from Africa and Eurasia PDF Author: Andrej Malchukov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110338815
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 885

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Book Description
Earlier empirical studies on valency have looked at the phenomenon either in individual languages or a small range of languages, or have concerned themselves with only small subparts of valency (e.g. transitivity, ditransitive constructions), leaving a lacuna that the present volume aims to fill by considering a wide range of valency phenomena across 30 languages from different parts of the world. The individual-language studies, each written by a specialist or group of specialists on that language and covering both valency patterns and valency alternations, are based on a questionnaire (reproduced in the volume) and an on-line freely accessible database, thus guaranteeing comparability of cross-linguistic results. In addition, introductory chapters provide the background to the project and discuss its main characteristics and selected results, while a series of featured articles by leading scholars who helped shape the field provide an outside perspective on the volume’s approach. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in valency and argument structure, irrespective of theoretical persuasion, and will serve as a model for future descriptive studies of valency in individual languages.

The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity

The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity PDF Author: Jessica Coon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191059781
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 960

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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.