Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages

Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages PDF

Author: Enrique L. Palancar

Publisher: Brill's Studies in the Indigen

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9789004467750

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"As the first major survey of relative clause structure in the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, this volume comprises a collection of original, in-depth studies of relative constructions in representative languages from across Mexico and Central America, based on empirical data collected by the authors themselves. The studies not only reveal the complex and fascinating nature of relative clauses in the languages in question, but they also shed invaluable light on how Mesoamerica came to be one of the richest and most diverse linguistic areas on our planet. Contributors are: Eric Campbell, Claudine Chamoreau, Lucero Flores Nájera, Silviano Jiménez Jiménez, Óscar López Nicolás, Eladio (B'alam) Mateo Toledo, Enrique L. Palancar, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado"--

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages PDF

Author: Associate Professor of Linguistics Ivano Caponigro

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020-12-15

Total Pages: 579

ISBN-13: 0197518370

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This volume constitutes the first in-depth, systematic study of varieties of headless relative clauses in fifteen languages from five language families, all Mesoamerican languages spoken in Mexico and Guatemala and one Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. Headless relative clauses are clauses that often resemble interrogative clauses or headed relative clauses in their morpho-syntactic shape, but whose meaning brings them close to nominal constructions. For the vastmajority of the languages in this volume, many of which are endangered and all of which are understudied, the work presented here represents the only published material on the subject.

Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas

Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas PDF

Author: Bernard Comrie

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 902720683X

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Patterns of relative clause formation tend to vary according to the typological properties of a language. Highly polysynthetic languages tend to have fully nominalized relative clauses and no relative pronouns, while other typologically diverse languages tend to have relative clauses which are similar to main or independent clauses. Languages of the Americas, with their rich genetic diversity, have all been under the influence of European languages, whether Spanish, English or Portuguese, a situation that may be expected to have influenced their grammatical patterns. The present volume focuses on two tasks: The first deals with the discussion of functional principles related to relative clause formation: diachrony and paths of grammaticalization, simplicity vs. complexity, and formalization of rules to capture semantic-syntactic correlations. The second provides a typological overview of relative clauses in nine different languages going from north to south in the Americas.

The Mesoamerican Indian Languages

The Mesoamerican Indian Languages PDF

Author: Jorge A. Suarez

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1983-04-14

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780521296694

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At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. Professor Suárez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference.

The Structure of Language

The Structure of Language PDF

Author: Emma L. Pavey

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-08-19

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1139488694

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Most of the time we communicate using language without considering the complex activity we are undertaking, forming words and sentences in a split second. This book introduces the analysis of language structure, combining both description and theory within a single, practical text. It begins by examining words and parts of words, and then looks at how words work together to form sentences that communicate meaning. Sentence patterns across languages are also studied, looking at the similarities and the differences we find in how languages communicate meaning. The book also discusses how context can affect how we structure our sentences: the context of a particular language and its structures, the context of old and new information for us and our addressee(s), and the context of our culture.

Relative Clauses in Time and Space

Relative Clauses in Time and Space PDF

Author: Rachel Hendery

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9027206821

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Presents a comprehensive survey of historically attested relative clause constructions from a diachronic typological perspective. This title demonstrates how typology and historical linguistics can each benefit from attention to the other.

The Handbook of Language Emergence

The Handbook of Language Emergence PDF

Author: Brian MacWhinney

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 651

ISBN-13: 1119075386

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This authoritative handbook explores the latest integrated theory for understanding human language, offering the most inclusive text yet published on the rapidly evolving emergentist paradigm. Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

African linguistics on the prairie

African linguistics on the prairie PDF

Author: Jason Kandybowicz

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2018-06-15

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 3961100365

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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.