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Book The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity written by Jessica Coon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 1297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity written by Jessica Coon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Aspects of Split Ergativity

Download or read book Aspects of Split Ergativity written by Jessica Coon and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In languages with aspect-based split ergativity, one portion of the grammar follows an ergative pattern, while another shows a "split." In this book, Jessica Coon argues that aspectual split ergativity does not mark a split in how case is assigned, but rather, a split in sentence structure. Specifically, the contexts in which we find the appearance of a nonergative pattern in an otherwise ergative language involve added structure — a disassociation between the syntactic predicate and the stem carrying the lexical verb stem. This proposal builds on the proposal of Basque split ergativity in Laka 2006, and extends it to other languages. The book begins with an analysis of split person marking patterns in Chol, a Mayan language of southern Mexico. Here appearance of split ergativity follows naturally from the fact that the progressive and the imperfective morphemes are verbs, while the perfective morpheme is not. The fact that the nonperfective morphemes are verbs, combined with independent properties of Chol grammar, results in the appearance of a split. In aspectual splits, ergativity is always retained in the perfective aspect. This book further surveys aspectual splits in a variety of unrelated languages and offers an explanation for this universal directionality of split ergativity. Following Laka's (2006) proposal for Basque, Coon proposes that the cross-linguistic tendency for imperfective aspects to pattern with locative constructions is responsible for the biclausality which causes the appearance of a nonergative pattern. Building on Demirdache and Uribe-Etxebarria's (2000) prepositional account of spatiotemporal relations, Coon proposes that the perfective is never periphrastic - and thus never involves a split - because there is no preposition in natural language that correctly captures the relation of the assertion time to the event time denoted by the perfective aspect.

Book Deconstructing Ergativity

Download or read book Deconstructing Ergativity written by Maria Polinsky and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nominative-accusative and ergative are two common alignment types found across languages. In the former type, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are expressed the same way, and differently from the object of a transitive. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive appear in the same form, the absolutive, and the transitive subject has a special, ergative, form. Ergative languages often follow very different patterns, thus evading a uniform description and analysis. A simple explanation for that has to do with the idea that ergative languages, much as their nominative-accusative counterparts, do not form a uniform class. In this book, Maria Polinsky argues that ergative languages instantiate two main types, the one where the ergative subject is a prepositional phrase (PP-ergatives) and the one with a noun-phrase ergative. Each type is internally consistent and is characterized by a set of well-defined properties. The book begins with an analysis of syntactic ergativity, which as Polinsky argues, is a manifestation of the PP-ergative type. Polinsky discusses diagnostic properties that define PPs in general and then goes to show that a subset of ergative expressions fit the profile of PPs. Several alternative analyses have been proposed to account for syntactic ergativity; the book presents and outlines these analyses and offers further considerations in support of the PP-ergativity approach. The book then discusses the second type, DP-ergative languages, and traces the diachronic connection between the two types. The book includes two chapters illustrating paradigm PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: Tongan and Tsez. The data used in these descriptions come from Polinsky's original fieldwork hence presenting new empirical facts from both languages.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus written by Maria Polinsky and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-21 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus is an introduction to and overview of the linguistically diverse languages of southern Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Though the languages of the Caucasus have often been mischaracterized or exoticized, many of them have cross-linguistically rare features found in few or no other languages. This handbook presents facts and descriptions of the languages written by experts. The first half of the book is an introduction to the languages, with the linguistic profiles enriched by demographic research about their speakers. It features overviews of the main language families as well as detailed grammatical descriptions of several individual languages. The second half of the book delves more deeply into theoretical analyses of features, such as agreement, ellipsis, and discourse properties, which are found in some languages of the Caucasus. Promising areas for future research are highlighted throughout the handbook, which will be of interest to linguists of all subfields.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization written by Heiko Narrog and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 952 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the state of the art in research on grammaticalization, the process by which lexical items acquire grammatical function, grammatical items get additional functions, and grammars are created. Leading scholars from around the world introduce and discuss the core theoretical and methodological bases of grammaticalization, report on work in the field, and point to promising directions for new research. They represent every relevant theoretical perspective and approach. Research on grammaticalization and its role in linguistic change encompasses work on languages from every major linguistic family. Its results offer valuable insights for all theoretical frameworks, including generative, construction, and cognitive grammar, and relate to work in fields such as phonology, sociolinguistics, and language acquisition. The handbook is divided into five parts, of which the first two are devoted to theory and method, the third and fourth to work in linguistic domains, classes, and cateogories, and the fifth to case studies of grammaticalization in a range of languages. It will be an indispensable source of information and inspiration for all those who wish to know more about this fascinating and important field.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure written by Caroline Féry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 993 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields"--Del editor.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages written by Kenneth L. Rehg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment. The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research. The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages, addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, Language Documentation, provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part 3, Language Revitalization, includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus written by Maria Polinsky and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 1189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus is an introduction to and overview of the linguistically diverse languages of southern Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Though the languages of the Caucasus have often been mischaracterized or exoticized, many of them have cross-linguistically rare features found in few or no other languages. This handbook presents facts and descriptions of the languages written by experts. The first half of the book is an introduction to the languages, with the linguistic profiles enriched by demographic research about their speakers. It features overviews of the main language families as well as detailed grammatical descriptions of several individual languages. The second half of the book delves more deeply into theoretical analyses of features, such as agreement, ellipsis, and discourse properties, which are found in some languages of the Caucasus. Promising areas for future research are highlighted throughout the handbook, which will be of interest to linguists of all subfields.

Book Niuean

    Book Details:
  • Author : Diane Massam
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
  • Release : 2020-04-09
  • ISBN : 0198793553
  • Pages : 379 pages

Download or read book Niuean written by Diane Massam and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the grammar of Niuean, an endangered Polynesian language spoken on the island of Niue and in New Zealand, with a focus on the issue of predication. Since Aristotle, it has been claimed that a sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. Niuean constitutes the perfect testing ground for this claim: it displays verb-subject-object word order, in which the subject interrupts the predicate, and has an ergative case system, in which subjects are not clearly distinguished from objects in their marking for grammatical case. Diane Massam uses the framework of generative grammar to carry out a detailed analysis of the internal structure of Niuean predicates and arguments, as well as the relations between them, touching on many other topics including the nature of displacement, word formation, determiners, and thematic roles. The proposal is that Niuean complex predicates are formed via successive inversion, prior to the merge of all arguments (high argument merge), and that the predicate undergoes fronting to initial position across the arguments, with the same structure found also in nominal clauses. The conclusion is that Niuean does not have a subject in the usual sense, and this is related to the fact that the language has isolating morphology, lacking all tense and agreement inflection and nominative case. Instead, the language exhibits low absolutive predication, applicative ergative agents, and predicate fronting in lieu of subject extraction. The book extends our understanding of cross-linguistic sentence structure and grammatical case, and will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Austronesian linguistics, typology, and theoretical linguistics.

Book Rethinking Verb Second

Download or read book Rethinking Verb Second written by Rebecca Woods and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 979 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides the most exhaustive and comprehensive treatment available of the Verb Second property, which has been a central topic in formal syntax for decades. While Verb Second has traditionally been considered a feature primarily of the Germanic languages, this book shows that it is much more widely attested cross-linguistically than previously thought, and explores the multiple empirical, theoretical, and experimental puzzles that remain in developing an account of the phenomenon. Uniquely, formal theoretical work appears alongside studies of psycholinguistics, language production, and language acquisition. The range of languages investigated is also broader than in previous work: while novel issues are explored through the lens of the more familiar Germanic data, chapters also cover Verb Second effects in languages such as Armenian, Dinka, Tohono O'odham, and in the Celtic, Romance, and Slavonic families. The analyses have wide-ranging consequences for our understanding of the language faculty, and will be of interest to researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of syntax, historical linguistics, and language acquisition.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Negation

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Negation written by Viviane Déprez and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, international experts in negation provide a comprehensive overview of cross-linguistic and philosophical research in the field, as well as accounts of more recent results from experimental linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to a range of fundamental questions ranging from why negation displays so many distinct linguistic forms to how prosody and gesture participate in the interpretation of negative utterances. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters are arranged in eight parts that explore, respectively, the fundamentals of negation; issues in syntax; the syntax-semantics interface; semantics and pragmatics; negative dependencies; synchronic and diachronic variation; the emergence and acquisition of negation; and experimental investigations of negation. The volume will be an essential reference for students and researchers across a wide range of disciplines, and will facilitate further interdisciplinary work in the field.

Book Reconstructing Syntax

Download or read book Reconstructing Syntax written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot’s (2002: 625) conclusion: “[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we’ll eat the pudding.” This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax.

Book The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages written by Daniel Siddiqi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-25 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages is a one-stop reference for linguists on those topics that come up the most frequently in the study of the languages of North America (including Mexico). This handbook compiles a list of contributors from across many different theories and at different stages of their careers, all of whom are well-known experts in North American languages. The volume comprises two distinct parts: the first surveys some of the phenomena most frequently discussed in the study of North American languages, and the second surveys some of the most frequently discussed language families of North America. The consistent goal of each contribution is to couch the content of the chapter in contemporary theory so that the information is maximally relevant and accessible for a wide range of audiences, including graduate students and young new scholars, and even senior scholars who are looking for a crash course in the topics. Empirically driven chapters provide fundamental knowledge needed to participate in contemporary theoretical discussions of these languages, making this handbook an indispensable resource for linguistics scholars.

Book The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics written by Silvina Montrul and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 1171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heritage languages are minority languages learned in a bilingual environment. These include immigrant languages, aboriginal or indigenous languages and historical minority languages. In the last two decades, heritage languages have become central to many areas of linguistic research, from bilingual language acquisition, education and language policies, to theoretical linguistics. Bringing together contributions from a team of internationally renowned experts, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art overview of this emerging area of study from a number of different perspectives, ranging from theoretical linguistics to language education and pedagogy. Presenting comprehensive data on heritage languages from around the world, it covers issues ranging from individual aspects of heritage language knowledge to broader societal, educational, and policy concerns in local, global and international contexts. Surveying the most current issues and trends in this exciting field, it is essential reading for graduate students and researchers, as well as language practitioners and other language professionals.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language written by Keith Allan and published by Oxford Handbooks. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to define and describe tabooed words and language and to investigate the reasons and beliefs behind them. In general, taboo is defined as a proscription of behaviour for a specific community, time, and context. In terms of language, taboo applies to instances of language behaviour: the use of certain words in certain contexts. The existence of linguistic taboos and their management lead to the censoring of behaviour and, as a consequence, to language change and development. Chapters in this volume explore the multiple types of tabooed language from a variety of perspectives, such as sociolinguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, historical linguistics, and neurolinguistics, and with reference to fields such as law, publishing, politics, and advertising. Topics covered include impoliteness, swearing, censorship, taboo in deaf communities, translation of tabooed words, and the use of taboo in banter and comedy.

Book The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics written by Yan Huang and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together distinguished scholars from all over the world to present an authoritative, thorough, and yet accessible state-of-the-art survey of current issues in pragmatics. Following an introduction by the editor, the volume is divided into five thematic parts. Chapters in Part I are concerned with schools of thought, foundations, and theories, while Part II deals with central topics in pragmatics, including implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis, reference, and context. In Part III, the focus is on cognitively-oriented pragmatics, covering topics such as computational, experimental, and neuropragmatics. Part IV takes a look at socially and culturally-oriented pragmatics such as politeness/impoliteness studies, cross- and intercultural, and interlanguage pragmatics. Finally, the chapters in Part V explore the interfaces of pragmatics with semantics, grammar, morphology, the lexicon, prosody, language change, and information structure. The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics will be an indispensable reference for scholars and students of pragmatics of all theoretical stripes. It will also be a valuable resource for linguists in other fields, including philosophy of language, semantics, morphosyntax, prosody, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics, and for researchers and students in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computer science, anthropology, and sociology.