Author : Lambertus Christiaan Jozef Barbiers
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 41,62 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1848550200
Contains seventeen papers on microvariation in syntactic doubling. This work provides an overview of the syntactic doubling phenomena attested and of the theoretical analyses available. It discusses the syntactic doubling phenomena including, among others, subject pronoun doubling, WH pronoun doubling, clitic doubling and auxiliary doubling.
Author : Sjef Barbiers
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 495 pages
File Size : 22,71 MB
Release : 2008-10-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1848550219
Contains seventeen papers on microvariation in syntactic doubling. This work provides an overview of the syntactic doubling phenomena attested and of the theoretical analyses available. It discusses the syntactic doubling phenomena including, among others, subject pronoun doubling, WH pronoun doubling, clitic doubling and auxiliary doubling.
Author : Raffaella Zanuttini
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 47,85 MB
Release : 2014-06-11
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 019936723X
By comparing linguistic varieties that are quite similar overall, linguists can often determine where and how grammatical systems differ, and how they change over time. Micro-Syntactic Variation in North American English provides a systematic look at minimal differences in the syntax of varieties of English spoken in North America. The book makes available for the first time a range of data on unfamiliar constructions drawn from several regional and social dialects, data whose distribution and grammatical properties shed light on the varieties under examination and on the properties of English syntax more generally. The nine contributions collected in this volume fall under a number of overlapping topics: variation in the expression of negation and modality (the "so don't I" construction in eastern New England, negative auxiliary inversion in declaratives in African-American and southern white English, multiple modals in southern speech, the "needs washed" construction in the Pittsburgh area); pronouns and reflexives (transitive expletives in Appalachia, personal dative constructions in the Southern/Mountain states, long-distance reflexives in the Minnesota Iron Range); and the relation between linguistic variation and language change (the rise of "drama SO" among younger speakers, the difficulty in establishing which phenomena cluster together and should be explained by a single point of parametric variation). These chapters delve into the syntactic analysis of individual phenomena, and the editors' introduction and afterword contextualize the issues and explore their semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic implications.
Author : Jeroen Van Craenenbroeck
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 14,79 MB
Release : 2010-02-22
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0199704910
The Syntax of Ellipsis investigates a number of elliptical constructions found in Dutch dialects within the framework of the Minimalist Program. Using two case studies, Van Craenenbroeck argues that both the PF-deletion and the pro-theory of ellipsis are needed to account for the full range of elliptical phenomena attested in natural language. The first case study focuses on instances of stranding to the right of a sluiced wh-phrase: prepositions in English (What about?) and demonstrative pronouns in southern Dutch dialects (Wie dat? 'who that'). Van Craenenbroeck gives both of these phenomena a PF-deletion analysis, which turns out to have considerable repercussions for the structure of the left periphery and the syntax of wh-movement. Specifically, while minimal wh-phrases move from their IP-internal base position to specCP, complex ones are base-generated in the (split) left periphery. The second case study is concerned with Short Do Replies in southern Dutch dialects, a type of contradictory reply that at first sight bears a close resemblance to English VP-ellipsis. Van Craenenbroeck shows that in this case the ellipsis site is best represented as a null, structureless proform that is licensed by the head of a high PolP. Moreover, this pronominal is argued to occur in two other dialectal constructions as well: contradictory replies of the type Da's nie 'that is not' found in Brabant Dutch, and the occurrence of subject clitics and agreement endings on the words for yes and no in Southern Dutch dialects (e.g. Ja-n-s 'yes-PLURAL-they'). The Syntax of Ellipsis will be of interest to scholars of the left periphery, wh-movement, and Dutch dialects.
Author : M. Carme Picallo
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 30,35 MB
Release : 2014-07-24
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0191007390
In this book, leading scholars consider the ways in which syntactic variation can be accounted for in a minimalist framework. They explore the theoretical significance, content, and role of parameters; whether or not variation should be strongly or weakly accounted for by syntactic factors; and the explicitness - or lack thereof - that should be assumed with respect to the conditions imposed by narrow syntax. The book is divided into two parts. The first part contains chapters that consider the term 'parameter' to be a relevant theoretical notion under minimalist tenets. In the second part, on the other hand, chapters either argue that the term parameter amounts to no more than a label to describe variation, or assign it a less prominent role. Instead, language variation is attributed to sociolinguistic factors, language contact, frequency of use, or simply to options in the externalization of abstract syntactic relations. The book offers a valuable overview of the different approaches adopted in the study of language variation phenomena, and will appeal to theoretical linguists of all persuasions from graduate level upwards.
Author : Peter Auer
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 38,46 MB
Release : 2013-05-28
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027272115
The eighteen contributions in this volume are based on papers presented at the 6th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE 6), which was held at the University of Freiburg, Germany, from June 29 to July 1, 2011. The volume includes plenaries by Sjef Barbiers (‘Where is syntactic variation?’) and Arnulf Deppermann/ Stefan Kleiner & Ralf Knöbl (‘Standard usage’: Towards a realistic conception of spoken standard German). In addition, the editors have selected 16 papers ranging over a wide field of languages/varieties and topics. The languages and varieties covered are Belarusian, British English, Catalan, Dutch, Gaelic, Gallo-Italic, Greek, Italian, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romance, Russian, Scottish English, Swedish, Turkish, and several varieties of German. The majority of the papers deal with phonetic and phonological variation (Caro Reina; Deppermann, Kleiner and Knöbl; Katerbow; Moosmüller and Scheutz; Schützler; Schleef; West; Zeller; Ziegler), but morphological variation (Cornips and Hulk; Dal Negro), morphosyntactic variation (Melissaropoulou, Themistocleous, Tsiplakou and Tsolakidis), and syntactic variation (Barbiers; Håkansson; Rothmayr) are also represented. Additional papers deal with code-switching.
Author : Kristine Bentzen
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 33,81 MB
Release : 2015-01-22
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027269130
Övdalian is spoken in central Sweden by about 2000 speakers. Traditionally categorized as a dialect of Swedish, it has not received much international attention. However, Övdalian is typologically closer to Faroese or Icelandic than it is to Swedish, and since it has been spoken in relative isolation for about 1000 years, a number of interesting linguistic archaisms have been preserved and innovations have developed. This volume provides seven papers about Övdalian morphology and syntax. The papers, all based on extensive fieldwork, cover topics such as verb movement, subject doubling, wh-words and case in Övdalian. Constituting the first comprehensive linguistic description of Övdalian in English, this volume is of interest for linguists in the fields of Scandinavian and Germanic linguistics, and also historical linguists will be thrilled by some of the presented data. The data and the analyses presented here furthermore challenge our view of the morphosyntax of the Scandinavian languages in some cases – as could be expected when a new language enters the linguistic arena.
Author : Pierre Larrivée
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 357 pages
File Size : 19,98 MB
Release : 2011-12-23
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 3110238616
Why do grammars change? The cycle of negation proposed by Jespersen is crucially linked to the status of items and phrases. The definition of criteria establishing when a polarity item becomes a negative element, and the identification of the role of phrases for the evolution of negation are the two objectives pursued by the contributions to this volume. The contributions look at the emergence of negative items, and their relation within a given sentence, with particular reference to English and French. The comparative perspective supports the documentation of the fine-grained steps that shed light on the factors that (i) determine change and those that (ii) accompany actuation, which are considered through a dialogue between functionalist and formalist approaches. By looking at the place of negation in the architecture of the sentence, they take up the debate as to the relevance of phrasal projections and consider the role of features. Focusing on the make-up of individual items makes it possible to re-conceptualise the Jespersen cycle as the apparent result of the documented evolution patterns of individual (series of) items. This novel perspective is solidly grounded on an extensive use of the complete, up to date bibliography, and will contribute to shape future research.
Author : Gunther De Vogelaer
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 47,17 MB
Release : 2012-08-29
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9027273472
Much theorizing in language change research is made without taking into account dialect data. Yet, dialects seem to be superior data to build a theory of linguistic change on, since dialects are relatively free of standardization and therefore more tolerant of variant competition in grammar. In addition, as compared to most cross-linguistic and diachronic data, dialect data are unusually high in resolution. This book shows that the study of dialect variation has indeed the potential, perhaps even the duty, to play a central role in the process of finding answers to fundamental questions of theoretical historical linguistics. It includes contributions which relate a clearly formulated theoretical question of historical linguistic interest with a well-defined, solid empirical base. The volume discusses phenomena from different domains of grammar (phonology, morphology and syntax) and a wide variety of languages and language varieties in the light of several current theoretical frameworks.
Author : Artemis Alexiadou
Publisher : Frontiers Media SA
Page : 197 pages
File Size : 24,6 MB
Release : 2016-10-31
Category :
ISBN : 2889450120
This volume investigates the nature of grammatical representations in speakers who master multiple languages. Since the early days of modern formal approaches to grammar, most work has been based on the language of monolingual humans. Less work has been conducted based on data from speakers who possess more than one language. Although important insights have been gained from a monolingual focus, there is every reason to believe that bi- and multilingual data can inform linguistic theory. A lot of ongoing work demonstrates that this is indeed the case, and the current volume contributes to this growing literature. Thus, the research topic addresses a number of questions relating to grammatical structures in multilingual speakers as well as the methodological issues that arise in the context of studying such speakers. A better understanding of the grammatical sides of multilingualism is crucial for understanding the human language capacity and in turn for offering better advice to the public concerning issues of language choice for multilingual children and adults, education, and language deficits in multilingual individuals.
