It is the first detailed study of the subject of compound verbs in Kashmiri. It presents an introductory review, problems and methodology, verb sequences, non-compound sequences, the class of operators and functional use of compound verbs. Dr Vijay Kumar Kaul has taught linguistics at South Gujarat University, and University of Asmara.
Kashmir boasts a language which challenges every field of linguistics. Kashmiri is spoken by approximately 3,000,000 people. Its syntax, similar to Germanic and other verb second languages, has raised many significant issues within current generative theories proposed by Chomsky and other prominent linguists.
This volume is the first to present a detailed survey of the systems of verb-verb complexes in Asian languages from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Many Asian languages share, to a greater or lesser extent, a unique class of compound verbs consisting of a main verb and a quasi-auxiliary verb known as a 'vector' or 'explicator'. These quasi-auxiliary verbs exhibit unique grammatical behaviour that suggests that they have an intermediate status between full lexical verbs and wholly reduced auxiliaries. They are also semantically unique, in that when they are combined with main verbs, they can convey a rich variety of functional meanings beyond the traditional notions of tense, aspect, and modality, such as manner and intensity of action, benefaction for speaker or hearer, and polite or derogatory styles in speech. In this book, leading specialists in a range of Asian languages offer an in-depth analysis of the long-standing questions relating to the diachrony and geographical distribution of verb-verb complexes. The findings have implications for the general understanding of the grammaticalization of verb categories, complex predicate formation, aktionsart and event semantics, the morphology-syntax-semantics interface, areal linguistics, and typology.
The study of grammaticalization raises a number of fundamental theoretical issues pertaining to the relation of langue and parole, creativity and automatic coding, synchrony and diachrony, categoriality and continua, typological characteristics and language-specific forms, etc., and therefore challenges some of the basic tenets of twentieth century linguistics.This two-volume work presents a number of diverse theoretical viewpoints on grammaticalization and gives insights into the genesis, development, and organization of grammatical categories in a number of language world-wide, with particular attention to morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic issues. The papers in Volume I are divided into two sections, the first concerned with general method, and the second with issues of directionality. Those in Volume II are divided into five sections: verbal structure, argument structure, subordination, modality, and multiple paths of grammaticalization.
This is a general introduction to grammaticalization, the change whereby lexical terms and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. The authors synthesize work from several areas of linguistics, including historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Data are drawn from many languages including Ewe, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hittite, Japanese, Malay, and especially English. This 2003 second edition has been thoroughly revised with substantial updates on theoretical and methodological issues that have arisen in the decade since the first edition, and includes a significantly expanded bibliography. Particular attention is paid to recent debates over directionality in change and the role of grammaticalization in creolization. Grammaticalization will be a valuable and stimulating textbook for all linguists interested in the development of grammatical forms and will also be of interest to readers in anthropology and psychology.
This volume presents thirteen original papers dealing with various aspects of two related areas of research of major concern to linguists of all theoretical persuasions: voice and grammatical relations. The papers are written from typological, functional, and cognitive perspectives, and contain of a number of general studies as well as studies focusing on specific issues, and offer a wealth of data from a broad range of languages. The volume provides up-to-date discussions of an array of issues of theoretical concern, including the nature of grammatical relations, voice in agent/patient systems, the expression vs non-expression of participant roles, and personal vs impersonal passives. The papers in the volume demonstrate that investigations into the nature of voice and grammatical relations can still yield fresh theoretical and typological insights.
This book is an attempt to provide a corpus based account of Bangla complex predicates and represent them in a structured lexicon suitable for further information processing useful in any Natural Language Processing (NLP) works. The framework which is adopted in the book for representation of the complex predicate is Generative Lexicon proposed by James Pustejovsky. Bangla has mainly three kinds of complex predicates which are extensively used in the language, viz., Adjective-Verb conjunct predicates, Noun-Verb conjunct predicates and Verb-Verb predicates known as compound verbs in the literature. There are three very important outcomes of this research work, none of them has ever been attempted for any Indian languages and all of them are crucial from both theoretical as well as applicational point of view. First, it provides a classification of adjectives of Bangla based on their behavior when attached in a conjunct verb. This classification is based on the semantic properties of the adjectives. However, it also provides information about their syntactic behavior, viz., which semantic class goes with which verb in a conjunct verb frame in the syntax. Secondly, it also attempts to classify the nouns of Bangla used in Noun-Verb conjuncts. This classification is based on the syntactic frames in which they appear when used in a Conjunct Verb construction. Thirdly, the work creates verb frames for the complex predicates of Bangla. Verb frames are syntactic frames or environment where these verbs occur. They are able to provide important information about their argument structure both types and kinds of arguments. The book will be useful for researchers working in theoretical linguistic issues like argument structure, semantics of complex predicates etc in general. The book uses a powerful knowledge representation framework Generative Lexicon for the representation of the complex predicates and can be used in the area of applied Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.