Analyzing Syntax
Analyzing Syntax

Author: Paul Kroeger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-04-08

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 9780521016544

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Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach is a comprehensive and accessible 2004 textbook on syntactic analysis, designed for students of linguistics at advanced undergraduate or graduate level. Working within the 'Lexical Functional Grammar' (LFG) approach, it provides students with a framework for analyzing and describing grammatical structure, using extensive examples from both European and non-European languages. Topics covered include: tests for constituency, passivization and other relation-changing processes, reflexive pronouns, the control relation, Topic and Focus, relative clauses and Wh-questions, causative constructions, serial verbs, 'quirky case', and ergativity. As well as building on what linguists have learned about language in general, particular attention is paid to the unique features of individual languages. While its primary focus is on syntactic structure, the book also deals with aspects of meaning, function and word-structure that are directly relevant to syntax. Clearly organised into topics, this textbook is ideal for one-semester courses in syntax and grammatical analysis.

The Oxford Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian Languages of Southeast Asia
The Oxford Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian Languages of Southeast Asia

Author: Alexander Adelaar

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-08-29

Total Pages: 1089

ISBN-13: 0192534262

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This volume presents the most wide-ranging treatment available today of the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Southeast Asia and their outliers, a group of more than 800 languages belonging to the wider Austronesian family. It brings together leading scholars and junior researchers to offer a comprehensive account of the historical relations, typological diversity, and varied sociolinguistic issues that characterize this group of languages, including current debates in their prehistories and descriptive priorities for future study. The book is divided into four parts. Part I deals with historical linguistics, including discussion of human genetics, archaeology, and cultural history. Chapters in Part II explore language contact between Malayo-Polynesian and unrelated languages, as well as sociolinguistic issues such as multilingualism, language policy, and language endangerment. Part III provides detailed overviews of the different groupings of Malayo-Polynesian languages, while Part IV offers in-depth studies of important typological features across the whole linguistic area. The Oxford Guide to the Malayo-Polynesian Languages of Southeast Asia will be an essential reference for students and researchers specializing in Austronesian languages and for typologists and comparative linguists more broadly.

Number – Constructions and Semantics
Number – Constructions and Semantics

Author: Anne Storch

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2014-03-19

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9027270635

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This book is the outcome of several decades of research experience, with contributions by leading scholars based on long-term field research. It combines approaches from descriptive linguistics, anthropological linguistics, socio-historical studies, areal linguistics, and social anthropology. The key concern of this ground-breaking volume is to investigate the linguistic means of expressing number and countable amounts, which differ greatly in the world’s languages. It provides insights into common number-marking devices and their not-so-common usages, but also into phenomena such as the absence of plurals, or transnumeral forms. The different contributions to the volume show that number is of considerable semantic complexity in many languages worldwide, expressing all kinds of extendedness, multiplicity, salience, size, and so on. This raises a number of challenging questions regarding what exactly is described under the slightly monolithic label of ‘number’ in most descriptive approaches to the languages of the world.

Leti, a Language of Southwest Maluku
Leti, a Language of Southwest Maluku

Author: A. Engelenhoven

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-28

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 9004486909

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Leti is spoken on the island with the same name near the Indonesian-East Timorese border. This small Austronesian language became known among linguists for the complex patterns of metathesis permeating its entire grammar. Besides little discussed topics, like its intricate deictic system and lexical parallelism, this book provides information on intriguing features of the Leti language that remained undescribed, such as singing, naming, storytelling and the semantics of the indexer clitic. A complete version of the Sailfish myth that underlies the structures of all Southwest Malukan island communities has been added. The entire text is provided with interlinear glosses. All lexical items in the text and in the description have been inserted in a word list together with all lexical parallels. Being the first exhaustive study of a Southwest Malukan language, this description is a valuable contribution to the typological study of East Indonesia and East Timor and to Austronesian linguistics. The abundance of examples makes it of interest also for linguists with a theoretical orientation in phonology, syntax and semantics. The 'insider's perspective' approach provides essential information for students of ethnolinguistics and oral traditions in the region.

A Survey of Word Accentual Patterns in the Languages of the World
A Survey of Word Accentual Patterns in the Languages of the World

Author: Harry van der Hulst

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2010-12-15

Total Pages: 897

ISBN-13: 3110198967

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In part I of this volume, experts on various language areas provide surveys of word stress/accent systems of as many languages in 'their' part of the world as they could lay their hands on. No preconditions (theoretical or otherwise) were set, but the authors were encouraged to use the StressTyp data in their chapters. Australian Languages (Rob Goedemans), Austronesian Languages (Ellen van Zanten, Ruben Stoel and Bert Remijsen), Papuan Languages (Ellen van Zanten and Philomena Dol), North American Languages (Keren Rice), South American Languages (Sergio Meira and Leo Wetzels), African Languages (Laura Downing), European Languages (Harry van der Hulst), Asian Languages (Harry van der Hulst and René Schiering), Middle Eastern Languages (Harry van der Hulst and Sam Hellmuth). There is an introductory chapter (Chapter 1) that will provide the reader with elementary terminology and theoretical tools to understand the variety of accentual systems that will be discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Chapter 2 has a double function. It presents an overview of stress patterns in Australian languages, but at the same time it is intended to (re-)familiarize readers with the coding, terminology and theoretical ideas of the StressTyp database. Chapter 11 presents statistical and typological information from the StressTyp database. Part II of this volume contains 'language profiles' which are, for each of the 511 languages contained in StressTyp (in 2009), extracts from the information that is contained in the database. This volume will be of interest to people in the field of theoretical phonology and language typology. It will function as a reference work for these groups of researchers, but also, more generally, for people working on syntax and other fields of linguistics, who might wish to know certain basic facts about the distribution of word accent systems

Clusivity
Clusivity

Author: Elena Filimonova

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9789027229748

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This book presents a collection of papers on clusivity, a newly coined term for the inclusive–exclusive distinction. Clusivity is a widespread feature familiar from descriptive grammars and frequently figuring in typological schemes and diachronic scenarios. However, no comprehensive exploration of it has been available so far. This book is intended to make the first step towards a better understanding of the inclusive–exclusive opposition, by documenting the current linguistic knowledge on the topic. The issues discussed include the categorial and paradigmatic status of the opposition, its geographical distribution, realization in free vs bound pronouns, inclusive imperatives, clusivity in the 2nd person, honorific uses of the distinction, etc. These case studies are complemented by the analysis of the opposition in American Sign Language as opposed to spoken languages. In-depth areal and family surveys of clusivity consider this opposition in Austronesian, Tibeto-Burman, central-western South American, Turkic languages, and in Mosetenan and Shuswap.

Onomatopoeia in the World’s Languages
Onomatopoeia in the World’s Languages

Author: Lívia Körtvélyessy

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-04-01

Total Pages: 1351

ISBN-13: 3111053377

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This is the very first publication mapping onomatopoeia in the languages of the world. The publication provides a comprehensive, multi-level description of onomatopoeia in the world’s languages. The sample covers six macro-areas defined in the WALS: Euroasia, Africa, South America, North America, Australia, Papunesia. Each language-descriptive chapter specifies phonological, morphological, word-formation, semantic, and syntactic properties of onomatopoeia in the particular language. Furthermore, it provides information about the approach to onomatopoeia in individual linguistic traditions, the sources of data on onomatopoeia, the place and the function of onomatopoeia in the system of each language.