Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Author: Alice C. Harris

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-09-21

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 9780521478816

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In this major new work Alice Harris and Lyle Campbell set out to establish a general framework for the investigation of linguistic change. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic change across a wide variety of languages is used to construct hypotheses about the universals and limits of language change more generally. In particular, the authors seek to move closer towards describing the range of causes of syntactic change to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of syntactic change, and to provide an understanding of why some languages undergo certain changes and not others. The authors draw on languages as diverse as Pipil and French, Georgian and Estonian, and the data presented is one of the book's great strengths. Rigor and precision are combined here with a great breadth of scholarship to produce a unique resource for the study of linguistic change, which will be of use to scholars and students alike.

Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective
Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective

Author: Mirjam Fried

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-12-23

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 9027294968

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This volume gives an easily accessible, yet comprehensive, sophisticated, and example-rich introduction to Construction Grammar as it has been developed from the early 1980’s by Charles J. Fillmore and his associates. It also provides a succinct account of the historical and intellectual background of the model and shows how Construction Grammar can easily be applied to typologically very different languages and to a variety of language-specific phenomena. All of the contributors to the volume came out of the Fillmorean school at UC-Berkeley and have worked consistently on applying and further developing the model in various domains of linguistic analysis.The 'Thumbnail sketch' by Fried & Östman is the only extensive introduction published so far to Fillmorean Construction Grammar.

Similative and Equative Constructions
Similative and Equative Constructions

Author: Yvonne Treis

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2017-05-31

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 9027265976

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While comparative constructions have been extensively studied in the past decades, the expression of equality and similarity has so far attracted little attention in the typological literature. The fifteen contributions assembled in this volume study similative and equative constructions in typologically and genetically distant languages, albeit with a focus on Africa, and from a range of perspectives. Purely synchronically oriented case studies are supplemented by contributions that also shed light on the diachronic development of similative and equative constructions in language contact situations. Sources of similative morphemes and lexically expressed concepts of likeness are examined, and little-known multifunctionality patterns and grammaticalisation targets of similative morphemes – such as purpose clause markers, modality morphemes and markers of glottonyms – are discussed. Based on a sample of 119 languages worldwide, a new typology of equative constructions is proposed. The book should be of interest to typologists, semanticists, specialists of grammaticalization, historical linguistics and syntax.

Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective
Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective

Author: Yen-hui Audrey Li

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 0199945675

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Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective collects twelve new papers that explore the syntax of Chinese in comparison with other languages.

Dialectology Meets Typology
Dialectology Meets Typology

Author: Bernd Kortmann

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 3110179490

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TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions
Deletion phenomena in comparative constructions

Author: Julia Bacskai-Atkari

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 3961100837

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This book provides a new analysis for the syntax of comparatives, focusing on various deletion phenomena affecting the subclause. In particular, the proposed account shows that Comparative Deletion is merely a surface phenomenon that can be drawn back to the overtness of the comparative operator and the availability of lower copies of a movement chain, and it is thus subject to both language-internal and cross-linguistic variation. The main focus of the book is on English, yet other languages are also discussed for comparative purposes, with the aim of showing what the idiosyncratic properties of English comparatives are.

'Subordination' Versus 'coordination' in Sentence and Text
'Subordination' Versus 'coordination' in Sentence and Text

Author: Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 9789027231093

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The papers collected in this volume (including a comprehensive introduction) investigate semantic and discourse-related aspects of subordination and coordination, in particular the relationship between subordination/coordination at the sentence level and subordination/coordination - or hierarchical/non-hierarchical organization - at the discourse level. The contributions in part I are concerned with central theoretical questions; part II consists of corpus-based cross-linguistic studies of clause combining and discourse structure, involving at least two of the languages English, German, Dutch, French and Norwegian; part III contains papers addressing specific - predominantly semantic - topics relating to German, English or French; and the papers in part IV approach the topic of subordination, coordination and rhetorical relations from a diachronic (Old Indic and Early Germanic) perspective. The book aims to contribute to a better understanding of information packaging on the sentence and text level related, within a particular language as well as cross-linguistically.

Non-canonical Control in a Cross-linguistic Perspective
Non-canonical Control in a Cross-linguistic Perspective

Author: Anne Mucha

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2021-09-17

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9027259585

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Control, typically defined as a specific referential dependency between the null-subject of a non-finite embedded clause and a co-dependent of the matrix predicate, has been subject to extensive research in the last 50 years. While there is a broad consensus that a distinction between Obligatory Control (OC), Non-Obligatory Control (NOC) and No Control (NC) is useful and necessary to cover the range of relevant empirical phenomena, there is still less agreement regarding their proper analyses. In light of this ongoing discussion, the articles collected in this volume provide a cross-linguistic perspective on central questions in the study of control, with a focus on non-canonical control phenomena. This includes cases which show NOC or NC in complement clauses or OC in adjunct clauses, cases in which the controlled subject is not in an infinitival clause, or in which there is no unique controller in OC (i.e. partial control, split control, or other types of controllers). Based on empirical generalizations from a wide range of languages, this volume provides insights into cross-linguistic variation in the interplay of different components of control such as the properties of the constituent hosting the controlled subject, the syntactic and lexical properties of the matrix predicate as well as restrictions on the controller, thereby furthering our empirical and theoretical understanding of control in grammar.

Adverbs and Functional Heads
Adverbs and Functional Heads

Author: Guglielmo Cinque

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0195115279

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This text presents evidence locating adverb phrases in the specifiers of distinct functional projections within a theory of the clause. In this theory, both adverbs and heads, which encode the functional notions of the clause, are ordered in a rigid sequence. The author's proposal suggests that the structure of natural language sentences is much richer than previously assumed.

Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language
Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language

Author: Jiansheng Guo

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 617

ISBN-13: 0805859985

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Inspired by the pioneering work of Dan Slobin, this volume discusses language learning from a crosslinguistic perspective, integrates language specific factors in narrative skill, covers the major theoretical issues, and explores the relationship between language and cognition.