Surveying over 300 languages, this typological study presents new theoretical insights into the nature of agreement, as well as empirical findings about the distribution of agreement patterns in the world's languages. Focussing primarily on agreement in gender, number and person, but with reference to agreement in other smaller categories, Ranko Matasović aims to discover which patterns of agreement are widespread and common in languages, and which are rather limited in their distribution. He sheds new light on a range of important theoretical questions such as what agreement actually is, what areal, typological and genetic patterns exist across agreement systems, and what problems in the analysis of agreement remain unresolved.
This book brings together for the first time a series of previously published papers featuring Ian Roberts’ pioneering work on diachronic and comparative syntax over the last thirty years in one compr
Originally published in 1980, Language in Tanzania presents a comprehensive overview of the Survey of Language Use and Language Teaching in Eastern Africa. Using extensive research carried out by an i
The volume contains transcribed versions of lectures that Janda delivered as part of the July 2011 China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics. Among her topics are from cognitive linguisti
Exploring Nanosyntax provides the first in-depth introduction to the framework of nanosyntax, which originated in the early 2000s as a formal theory of language within Principles and Parameters framew
This volume focuses on detailed studies of various aspects of Construction Morphology, and combines theoretical analysis and descriptive detail. It deals with data from several domains of linguistics
Codeswitching occurs when multilingual speakers embed elements of more than one language into the dominant (or Matrix) language within individual utterances of conversation. Codeswitching in Igbo-Engl
The Oxford English Dictionary contains 175,000 words in common usage and yet linguists estimate that a vocabulary of 3,000 is sufficient to cover ninety-five per cent of common usage in speech and pri
What is the English language like, why is it like that and what do we need to know in order to study it? This wide ranging introductory textbook not only presents the English language from multiple pe
Answering key questions such as 'Why study grammar?' and 'What is standard English?', Introducing English Grammar guides readers through the practical analysis of the syntax of English sentences.With
What exactly are words? Are they the things that get listed in dictionaries, or are they the basic units of sentence structure? Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy explores the implications of these different a
What exactly are words? Are they the things that get listed in dictionaries, or are they the basic units of sentence structure? Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy explores the implications of these different a
Ideophones have been recognized in modern linguistics at least since 1935, but they still lie far outside the concerns of mainstream (Western) linguistic debate, in part because they are most richly attested in relatively unstudied (often unwritten) languages. The evolution of language, on the other hand, has recently become a fashionable topic, but all speculations so far have been almost totally data-free. Without disputing the tenet that there are no primitive languages, this book argues that ideophones may be an atavistic throwback to an earlier stage of communication, where sounds and gestures were paired in what can justifiably be called a 'prelinguistic' fashion. The structure of ideophones may also provide answers to deeper questions, among them how communicative gestures may themselves have emerged from practical actions. Moreover, their current distribution and behaviour provide hints as to how they may have become conventional words in languages with conventional rules.
A pioneering new approach to a long-debated topic at the heart of syntax: what are the primitive concepts and operations of syntax? This book argues, appealing in part to the logic of Chomsky's Minimalist Program, that the primitive operations of syntax form relations between words rather than combining words to form constituents. Just three basic relations, definable in terms of inherent selection properties of words, are required in natural language syntax: projection, argument selection, and modification. In the radically simplified account of generative grammar Bowers proposes there are just two interface levels, which interact with our conceptual and sensory systems, and a lexicon from which an infinite number of sentences can be constructed. The theory also provides a natural interpretation of phase theory, enabling a better formulation of many island constraints, as well as providing the basis for a unified approach to ellipsis phenomena.
This volume collects thirteen of the author’s previously published papers from the last 25 years which explore various aspects of grammatical architecture from a minimalist perspective. The book exami
Prosody is generally studied at a separate linguistic level from syntax and semantics. It analyses phonetic properties of utterances such as pitch and prominence, and orders them into phonological categories such as pitch accent, boundary tone, and metrical grid. The goal is to define distinctive formal differentiators of meanings in utterances. But what these meanings are is either excluded or a secondary concern. This book takes the opposite approach, asking what are the basic categories of meaning that speakers want to transmit to listeners? And what formal means do they use to achieve it? It places linguistic form in functions of speech communication, and takes into account all the formal exponents - sounds, words, syntax, prosodies - for specific functional coding. Basic communicative functions such as 'questioning' may be universally assumed, but their coding by linguistic bundles varies between languages. A comparison of function-form systems in English, German and Mandarin Chin
Chapters in this volume describe morphology using four different frameworks that have an architectural property in common: they all use defaults as a way of discovering and presenting systematicity in
