Case Marking and Reanalysis

Case Marking and Reanalysis PDF

Author: Cynthia L. Allen

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 534

ISBN-13: 9780198238676

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English underwent sweeping changes to its inflectional system in the Middle English period and it is widely assumed that the loss of case-marking distinctions had profound consequences for the syntax of the language. Allen here makes a detailed study of these changes, questioning the results of previous analyses which, she argues, posit too direct a link between the morphological and syntactic changes.

Case, Typology and Grammar

Case, Typology and Grammar PDF

Author: Anna Siewierska

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1998-05-15

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 9027298610

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The present volume is a collection of fifteen original articles that include descriptive, typological and/or theoretical studies of a number of morphosyntactic phenomena, such as case, transitivity, grammaticalization, valency alternations, etc., in a variety of languages or language groups, and discussions concerning theoretical issues in specific grammatical frameworks. The collection, written in honor of the Australian linguist Barry J. Blake on his 60th birthday, thematically reflects the field that Professor Blake has worked in over the past three decades. The volume will be of special interest to researchers in morphosyntax, and linguistic typology. In addition, scholars in discourse grammar, historical linguistics, theoretical syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and language contact will find articles of interest in the book.

Syntactic Modularity

Syntactic Modularity PDF

Author: Gabriella Hermon

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-12-02

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 3110849143

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The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert

Mechanisms of Syntactic Change

Mechanisms of Syntactic Change PDF

Author: Charles N. Li

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-09-10

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1477301054

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Historical linguistics, the oldest field in linguistics, has been traditionally dominated by phonological and etymological investigations. Only in the late twentieth century have linguists begun to focus their interest and research on the area of syntactic change and the insight it provides on the nature of language. This volume represents the first major contribution on the mechanisms of syntactic change. The fourteen articles that make up this volume were selected from the Symposium on the Mechanisms of Syntactic Change held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1976, one of a series of three conferences sponsored by the National Science Foundation. These papers clearly demonstrate that the generative approach to the study of language does not explain diachronic processes in syntax. This collection is enlightening, provocative, and carefully documented with data drawn from a great variety of language families.

Genitives in Early English

Genitives in Early English PDF

Author: Cynthia L. Allen

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2008-11-13

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0199216681

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This book considers how English possessives changed from -es to 's during the middle ages. The author draws together her own and others' research on syntactic and morphological change in order to assess and explain the roles of processing and pragmatics in the construction of grammars and grammatical change.

The Decline of the French Passé Simple

The Decline of the French Passé Simple PDF

Author: Emmanuelle Labeau

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-06-27

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 9004463348

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The disappearance of the French simple past has been hotly debated since the early 20th century. This volume offers an overview of its fortunes since French emerged as a language, provides a description of its distinctive features, and discusses the potential impact of its supposed demise on the whole French verb system. These assumptions are tested against a large corpus of contemporary texts. The study concludes that, despite the erosion of its meaning and its increasingly infrequent use, the simple past tense is still used by native speakers in various contexts, and no single substitute has yet emerged. Nevertheless, the simple past may be evolving into a stylistic marker, making it fertile ground for future cross-linguistic studies.

Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian

Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian PDF

Author: Sandra Chung

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-10-23

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0292768540

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Case Marking and Grammatical Relations in Polynesian makes an outstanding contribution to both Polynesian and historical linguistics. It is at once a reference work describing Polynesian syntax, an investigation of the role of grammatical relations in syntax, and a discussion of ergativity, case marking, and other areas of syntactic diversity in Polynesian. In its treatment of the history of case marking in Polynesian, it attempts to specify what counts as evidence in syntactic reconstruction and how syntactic reanalysis progresses. It therefore represents a first step toward a general theory of syntactic change. Chung first describes the basic syntax of the Polynesian languages, discussing Maori, Tongan, Samoan, Kapingamarangi, and Pukapukan in depth. She then presents an investigation of the grammatical relations of these languages and their relevance to syntax and shows that the syntax of all these languages—even those with ergative case marking—revolves around the familiar grammatical relations subject and direct object. Finally the book traces the historical development of the different case systems from their origins in Proto-Polynesian.

The Typology of Semantic Alignment

The Typology of Semantic Alignment PDF

Author: Mark Donohue

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2008-01-24

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0191528781

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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.

On the Content of Empty Categories

On the Content of Empty Categories PDF

Author: Denis Bouchard

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-02-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3110850001

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The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert