Copular Clauses
Copular Clauses

Author: Line Mikkelsen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2005-10-13

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9027294135

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is concerned with a class of copular clauses known as specificational clauses, and its relation to other kinds of copular structures, predicational and equative clauses in particular. Based on evidence from Danish and English, I argue that specificational clauses involve the same core predication structure as predicational clauses — one which combines a referential and a predicative expression to form a minimal predicational unit — but differ in how the predicational core is realized syntactically. Predicational copular clauses represent the canonical realization, where the referential expression is aligned with the most prominent syntactic position, the subject position. Specificational clauses involve an unusual alignment of the predicative expression with subject position. I suggest that this unusual alignment is grounded in information structure: the alignment of the less referential DP with the subject position serves a discourse connective function by letting material that is relatively familiar in the discourse appear before material that is relatively unfamiliar in the discourse. Equative clauses are argued to be fundamentally different.

Copular Clauses
Copular Clauses

Author: Line Mikkelsen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9789027228093

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

LC Number: 2005054553

Copular Sentences in Russian
Copular Sentences in Russian

Author: Asya Pereltsvaig

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-05-11

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1402057938

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a detailed study and a novel Minimalist account of copular sentences in Russian, focusing on case marking alternations (nominative vs. instrumental) and drawing a distinction between two types of copular sentences. On the assumption that Merge is defined in the simplest way possible, it is argued that not all syntactic structures are a(nti)symmetrical. One of the copular sentence types is analyzed as a poster child for symmetrical structures, while the other type is treated as asymmetrical. The originality of this study lies in treating the copula in the two types of copular sentences neither as completely identical nor as two distinct lexical items; instead, the two types of copula are derived through the process of semantic bleaching. Furthermore, it is argued that the two types of the copula need to combine with post-copular phrases of different categories. It is concluded that Russian draws a distinction between saturated DPs and unsaturated NPs, in spite of its renowned lack of overt articles.

Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian
Copular Clauses and Focus Marking in Sumerian

Author: Gábor Zólyomi

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-09-05

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 3110401703

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This work is the first comprehensive description of Sumerian constructions involving a copula. Using around 400 fully glossed examples, it gives a thorough analysis of all uses of the copula, which is one of the least understood and most frequently misinterpreted and consequently mistranslated morphemes in Sumerian. It starts with a concise introduction into the grammatical structure of Sumerian, followed by a study that is accessible to both linguists and sumerologists, as it applies the terminology of modern descriptive linguistics. It provides the oldest known and documented example of the path of grammaticalization that leads from a copula to a focus marker. It gives the description of Sumerian copular paratactic relative clauses, which make use of an otherwise only scarcely attested relativization strategy. At the end of the book, the reader will have a clear picture about the morphological and syntactic devices used to mark identificational, polarity and sentence focus in Sumerian, one of the oldest documented languages in the world.

Existence: Semantics and Syntax
Existence: Semantics and Syntax

Author: Ileana Comorovski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-08-20

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1402061986

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection of essays grew out of the workshop ‘Existence: Semantics and Syntax’, which was held at the University of Nancy 2 in September 2002. The workshop, organized by Ileana Comorovski and Claire Gardent, was supported by a grant from the Reseau ́ de Sciences Cognitives du Grand Est (‘Cognitive Science Network of the Greater East’), which is gratefully acknowledged. The ?rst e- tor wishes to thank Claire Gardent, Fred Landman, and Georges Rebuschi for encouraging her to pursue the publication of a volume based on papers presented at the workshop. Among those who participated in the workshop was Klaus von Heusinger, who joined Ileana Comorovski in editing this volume. Besides papers that developed out of presentations at the workshop, the volume contains invited contributions. We are grateful to Wayles Browne, Fred Landman, Paul Portner, and Georges Rebuschi for their help with reviewing some of the papers. Our thanks go also to a Springer reviewer for the careful reading of the book manuscript. We wish to thank all the participants in the workshop, not only those whose contributions appear in this volume, for making the workshop an int- active and constructive event. Ileana Comorovski Klaus von Heusinger vii ILEANA COMOROVSKI AND KLAUS VON HEUSINGER INTRODUCTION The notion of ‘existence’, which we take to have solid intuitive grounding, plays a central role in the interpretation of at least three types of linguistic constructions: copular clauses, existential sentences, and (in)de?nite noun phrases.

The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages
The Grammar of Copulas Across Languages

Author: María J. Arche

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-01-03

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0192565427

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents a crosslinguistic survey of the current theoretical debates around copular constructions from a generative perspective. Following an introduction to the main questions surrounding the analysis and categorization of copulas, the chapters address a range of key topics including the existence of more than one copular form in certain languages, the factors determining the presence or absence of a copula, and the morphology of copular forms. The team of expert contributors present new theoretical proposals regarding the formal mechanisms behind the behaviour and patterns observed in copulas in a wide range of typologically diverse languages, including Czech, French, Korean, and languages from the Dene and Bantu families. Their findings have implications beyond the study of copulas and shed more light on issues such as agreement relations, the nature of grammatical categories, and nominal predicates in syntax and semantics.

Semantics - Sentence and Information Structure
Semantics - Sentence and Information Structure

Author: Paul Portner

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 3110589869

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Read this book to get a deeper understanding of a wide range of semantics research on complex sentences and meaning in discourse. These in-depth articles from leading names in their fields cover the core concepts of sentential semantics such as tense, modality, conditionality, propositional attitudes, scope, negation, and coordination. The highly cited material, covers questions, imperatives, copular clauses, and existential sentences. It also includes essential research on sentence types, and explains central concepts in the theory of information structure and discourse structure, such as topics, cohesion and coherence, accessibility and discourse particles.

Finnish
Finnish

Author: Helena Sulkala

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 0415026431

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Explores many interesting details of Finnish syntax, morphology, phonology and lexicon, providing the linguist, for the first time in English, the opportunity for cross-language comparisons and detailed linguistic analysis.

Semantics. Volume 2
Semantics. Volume 2

Author: Klaus von Heusinger

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-12-23

Total Pages: 1079

ISBN-13: 3110255073

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

No detailed description available for "SEMANTICS (VON HEUSINGER ET AL.) BD. 33.2 HSK E-BOOK".

Nominalization in Asian Languages
Nominalization in Asian Languages

Author: Foong Ha Yap

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011-06-29

Total Pages: 818

ISBN-13: 9027287244

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Research on nominalization, a process that gives rise to referring expressions, has always played a central role in linguistic investigations. Over the years there has also been growing evidence that nominalization constructions often extend to non-referential domains. They participate in noun-modifying expressions (e.g. genitive and relative clauses), subordinate clauses and topic constructions, finite structures with the nominalizers reanalyzed as TAM markers, and stance constructions with evaluative, attitudinal, evidential and epistemic overtones. This volume brings together historical and crosslinguistic evidence from more than 20 different languages representing six different language families spanning the Asian continent and the Pacific and Indian oceans to elucidate the strategies and grammaticalization pathways that give rise to both referential and non-referential uses of nominalization constructions. This collection highlights the diversity of strategies and at the same time the robust cyclical nature of change within and across languages. The combined diachronic and typological analyses in this volume are particularly valuable for linguistic research on diachronic morphosyntax and linguistic ‘universals’, and are also an important supplementary cross-referencing tool for linguistic investigations of versatile and ubiquitous morphemes in under-documented languages.