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Every linguistic theory has to come to grips with a fundamental property of human language: the existence of exceptions, i.e. phenomena that do not follow the standard patterns one observes otherwise. The contributions to this volume discuss and exemplify a variety of approaches to exceptionality within different formal and non-formal frameworks. Topics include criteria for exceptionality, the diachronic rise of exceptions, the relevance of different grammatical subsystems and their interaction in the explanation of exceptions, and the crucial characteristics of grammatical models that can accommodate exceptions. A special feature of the book is that the articles are accompanied by peer-commentaries and responses thereupon, thus opening up the papers to further discussion.
The result of over five years of close collaboration among an international group of leading typologists within the EUROTYP program, this volume is about the morphology and syntax of the noun phrase. Particular attention is being paid to nominal inflectional categories and inflectional systems and to the syntax of determination, modification, and conjunction. Its areal focus, like that of other EUROTYP volumes, is on the languages of Europe; but in order to appreciate what is peculiarly European about their noun phrases, a more comprehensive and genuinely typological view is being taken at the full range of cross-linguistic variation within this structural domain. There has been no shortage lately of contributions to the theory of noun phrase structure; the present volume is, however, unique in the extent to which its theorizing is empirically grounded.
The sixteen chapters in this volume are written by typologists and typologically oriented field linguists who have completed their Ph.D. theses in the first four years of this millennium. The authors address selected theoretical questions of general linguistic relevance drawing from a wealth of data hitherto unfamiliar to the general linguistic audience. The general aim is to broaden the horizons of typology by revisiting existing typologies with larger language samples, exploring domains not considered in typology before, taking linguistic diversity more seriously, strengthening the connection between typology and areal linguistics, and bridging the gap to other fields, such as historical l...
The present volume is a broad overview of methods and methodologies in linguistics, illustrated with examples from concrete research. It collects insights gained from a broad range of linguistic sub-disciplines, ranging from core disciplines to topics in cross-linguistic and language-internal diversity or to contributions towards language, space and society. Given its critical and innovative nature, the volume is a valuable source for students and researchers of a broad range of linguistic interests.
The volume focuses on semantic shifts and motivation patterns in the lexicon. Its key feature is its lexico-typological orientation, i.e. a heavy emphasis on systematic cross-linguistic comparison. The book presents current theoretical and methodological trends in the study of semantic shifts and motivational patters based on an abundance of empirical findings across genetically, areally and typologically diverse languages.
The essays in this volume address foundational questions in phonology that cut across different schools of thought within the discipline.
This is the first comprehensive grammar of Shaowu, a Min language spoken in Shaowu city and its environs in northwestern Fujian province, China. The book offers first-hand linguistic data collected over four years in the field, now placed at the disposal of researchers and students working in language documentation, comparative linguistics and Sinitic typology. It can serve as a reference grammar for those interested in learning the Shaowu language, thereby helping to preserve it. In addition, the book provides insights into Shaowu's classification which has been widely debated, thus elucidating its genetic affiliation. The book first presents Shaowu's geography, demography and history. It t...
Bringing together the results of sixty years of research in typology and universals, this textbook presents a comprehensive survey of Morphosyntax - the combined study of syntax and morphology. Languages employ extremely diverse morphosyntactic strategies for expressing functions, and Croft provides a comprehensive functional framework to account for the full range of these constructions in the world's languages. The book explains analytical concepts that serve as a basis for cross-linguistic comparison, and provides a rich source of descriptive data that can be analysed within a range of theories. The functional framework is useful to linguists documenting endangered languages, and those writing reference grammars and other descriptive materials. Each technical term is comprehensively explained, and cross-referenced to related terms, at the end of each chapter and in an online glossary. This is an essential resource on Morphosyntax for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and linguistic fieldworkers.
Complexity of grammatical structure has become a center of interest in recent typological and dialectological research. The contributions of the present volume discuss structural complexity from the perspective of language variation and change. Particular attention is paid to the hypothesis that languages and varieties spoken by small, isolated communities tend to display greater complexity than others.
This book promotes the development of linguistic databases by describing a number of successful database projects, focusing especially on cross-linguistic and typological research. It has become increasingly clear that ready access to knowledge about cross-linguistic variation is of great value to many types of linguistic research. Such a systematic body of data is essential in order to gain a proper understanding of what is truly universal in language and what is determined by specific cultural settings. Moreover, it is increasingly needed as a tool to systematically evaluate contrasting theoretical claims. The book includes a chapter on general problems of using databases to handle language data and chapters on a number of individual projects. Note: This title was originally announced as including a CD-Rom with databases. The CD-Rom, however, was replaced by a list of URLs within the book. More information as well as links to the databases can also be found here.