Aspects of the Morphology-syntax Interface in Four Nigerian Languages

Aspects of the Morphology-syntax Interface in Four Nigerian Languages PDF

Author: Gerald Heusing

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9783825839178

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This study seeks to blend the rigorous description of four Nigerian languages with theoretical insights. Four main tasks are involved. First, constructions involving the interface of morphology and syntax in the four languages are presented with regard to the syntax of substantives and functional categories, the morphology of functional heads and the relation between functional heads and the syntactic level of language. Secondly, these constructions are described and analysed within the framework of the Principles and Parameters Theory. Thirdly, those theoretical approaches within the Principles and Parameters Theory that can serve as tools for the analysis of the four languages are refined and modified, thereby establishing a version of the theory which may also serve for the morpho-syntactic analysis of related languages. Finally the syntactic model of functional categories is combined with a strictly morpho-semantic model of functional categories.

The Emergence of Functions in Language

The Emergence of Functions in Language PDF

Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-01-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0198844298

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This volume explores the question of why languages differ in the meanings expressed by their grammatical systems. It offers a new methodology to explore the differences and the motivations behind the emergence of meanings, based on data from a wide range of languages, including English, French, Polish, Chadic languages, and Sino-Russian idiolects.

The Role of Functions in Syntax

The Role of Functions in Syntax PDF

Author: Zygmunt Frajzyngier

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2016-03-10

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9027267286

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The main aim of this book is to address a fundamental question in linguistics, namely why languages are similar and why they are different. The study proposes that languages are fundamentally similar when they encode the same meanings in their grammatical systems and that languages are different when they encode different meanings. Even if languages encode the same meaning, they may differ with respect to the formal means used to code those meanings. This approach allows for a typology based on functional domains, subdomains and functions coded in individual languages. The outcome of the study is a unified approach to language theory, linguistic typology, and descriptive linguistics. The argumentation for the hypotheses and the proposed approach is supported by analyses of data from more than a dozen languages, including English, Polish, French, Wandala, Mina, Hdi, and several other Chadic languages. The study is accessible to a wide variety of linguists.

Motion, Direction and Location in Languages

Motion, Direction and Location in Languages PDF

Author: Erin Shay

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2003-09-18

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 9027275211

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This book contributes to an area of study that is of interest to linguists of all backgrounds. Typological in nature this volume presents data analysis from the major language families of Africa as well as Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Japanese, Indo-European, Siouan and Penutian. The 16 contributors to the volume share a commitment to examining the language phenomena pertaining to the volume’s theme with a fresh eye. While most of the papers make reference to existing theoretical frameworks, each also makes a novel and sometimes surprising contribution to the body of knowledge and theory concerning motional, directional and locational predicates, complements, morphology, adpositions and other phenomena. This collection of articles suitably complements courses on comparative and diachronic linguistics, semantics, syntax, typology, or field methods.

Linguistic Bibliography for the Year 2000 / Bibliographie Linguistique de l'Année 2000

Linguistic Bibliography for the Year 2000 / Bibliographie Linguistique de l'Année 2000 PDF

Author: Sijmen Tol

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2004-12-10

Total Pages: 1674

ISBN-13: 9781402030086

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Bibliographie Linguistique/ Linguistic Bibliography is the annual bibliography of linguistics published by the Permanent International Committee of Linguists under the auspices of the International Council of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies of UNESCO. With a tradition of more than fifty years (the first two volumes, covering the years 1939-1947, were published in 1949-1950), Bibliographie Linguistique is by far the most comprehensive bibliography in the field. It covers all branches of linguistics, both theoretical and descriptive, from all geographical areas, including less known and extinct languages, with particular attention to the many endangered languages of the world. Up-to-date information is guaranteed by the collaboration of some forty contributing specialists from all over the world. With over 20,000 titles arranged according to a detailed state-of-the-art classification, Bibliographie Linguistique remains the standard reference book for every scholar of language and linguistics.

Studies in Nigerian Linguistics

Studies in Nigerian Linguistics PDF

Author: Ndimele, Ozo-mekuri

Publisher: M & J Grand Orbit Communications

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9785416461

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Studies in Nigerian Linguistics is a compilation of research papers on topical issues in Nigerian languages and linguistics covering three main areas of research, viz.: Language and Society, Applied Linguistics and Formal Linguistics. The papers in this volume are sectioned as such, even though there are bits of overlapping, especially for some of the papers contained in the first and second sections. The first fifteen (15) papers focus on the major theme of Language and Society in Nigeria. Many of the papers in this section address some peculiar sociolinguistic issues that affect the nation, including the nagging and lingering problem regarding the “language question” for the Nigerian nation even after five decades of the attainment of “Political Independence”, language and national development and language varieties. Section 2 contains papers in Applied Linguistics in its narrow and extended senses. There are papers on language teaching and learning, interference and intraference phenomena, language engineering (with focus on codification), communication disorders, and much more. The third section contains sixteen (16) papers in the core areas of linguistics, including phonology, morphology and syntax of Nigerian languages. Some of the papers address aspects of the phonological and morphosyntactic processes of deletion, affixation, cliticisation, causativisation, complementation, serialisation, agreement, and much more. The phrasal structure and pronominal systems of some languages were also discussed.

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999

Bibliographie Linguistique de L'annee 1999 PDF

Author: Mark Janse

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 1484

ISBN-13: 9781402017162

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Setting out the historical national and religious characteristics of the Italians as they impact on the integration within the European Union, this study makes note of the two characteristics that have an adverse effect on Italian national identity: cleavages between north and south and the dominant role of family. It discusses how for Italians family loyalty is stronger than any other allegiance, including feelings towards their country, their nation, or the EU. Due to such subnational allegiances and values, this book notes that Italian civic society is weaker and engagement at the grass roots is less robust than one finds in other democracies, leaving politics in Italy largely in the hands of political parties. The work concludes by noting that EU membership, however, provides no magic bullet for Italy: it cannot change internal cleavages, the Italian worldview, and family values or the country’s mafia-dominated power matrix, and as a result, the underlying absence of fidelity to a shared polity—Italian or European—leave the country as ungovernable as ever.

A Grammar of Contemporary Igbo

A Grammar of Contemporary Igbo PDF

Author: Emenanjo, E. Nolue

Publisher: M & J Grand Orbit Communications

Published: 2016-02-22

Total Pages: 676

ISBN-13: 9785412733

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In twenty-five chapters this book covers phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The chapters are organized in four discrete parts: phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. They are uneven in terms of scope covered, length, the density of their contents and their degrees of difficulty. Each chapter ends with ‘Some References’ relevant to both the topic(s) treated in the chapter, in Igbo linguistics, and in general linguistics.

Introducing Morphology

Introducing Morphology PDF

Author: Rochelle Lieber

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0521895499

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A lively introduction to the study of how words are put together.