Grammatical Reconstruction

Author : Don Daniels
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110616564
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Grammatical Reconstruction written by Don Daniels and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.

Author : Don Daniels
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110616211
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Grammatical Reconstruction written by Don Daniels and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-03-09 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.

Author : Katalin É. Kiss
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110902222
Total Pages : 533 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages written by Katalin É. Kiss and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philologists aiming to reconstruct the grammar of ancient languages face the problem that the available data always underdetermine grammar, and in the case of gaps, possible mistakes, and idiosyncracies there are no native speakers to consult. The authors of this volume overcome this difficulty by adopting the methodology that a child uses in the course of language acquisition: they interpret the data they have access to in terms of Universal Grammar (more precisely, in terms of a hypothetical model of UG). Their studies, discussing syntactic and morphosyntactic questions of Older Egyptian, Coptic, Sumerian, Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Greek, Latin, and Classical Sanskrit, demonstrate that descriptive problems which have proved unsolvable for the traditional, inductive approach can be reduced to the interaction of regular operations and constraints of UG. The proposed analyses also bear on linguistic theory. They provide crucial new data and new generalizations concerning such basic questions of generative syntax as discourse-motivated movement operations, the correlation of movement and agreement, a shift from lexical case marking to structural case marking, the licensing of structural case in infinitival constructions, the structure of coordinate phrases, possessive constructions with an external possessor, and the role of event structure in syntax. In addition to confirming or refuting certain specific hypotheses, they also provide empirical evidence of the perhaps most basic tenet of generative theory, according to which UG is part of the genetic endowment of the human species - i.e., human languages do not "develop" parallel with the development of human civilization. Some of the languages examined in this volume were spoken as much as 5000 years old, still their grammars do not differ in any relevant respect from the grammars of languages spoken today.

Author : Katalin É Kiss
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 9783110185508
Total Pages : 538 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Universal Grammar in the Reconstruction of Ancient Languages written by Katalin É Kiss and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2005 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

Author : Bernd Heine
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191527831
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Genesis of Grammar written by Bernd Heine and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-10-05 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind. "Like other biological phenomena, language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether proven or hypothesized," wrote Talmy Givón in 2002. As the languages spoken 8,000 years ago were typologically much the same as they are today and as no direct evidence exists for languages before then, evolutionary linguists are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in biology. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva seek to overcome this obstacle by combining grammaticalization theory, one of the main methods of historical linguistics, with work in animal communication and human evolution. The questions they address include: do the modern languages derive from one ancestral language or from more than one? What was the structure of language like when it first evolved? And how did the properties associated with modern human languages arise, in particular syntax and the recursive use of language structures? The authors proceed on the assumption that if language evolution is the result of language change then the reconstruction of the former can be explored by deploying the processes involved in the latter. Their measured arguments and crystal-clear exposition will appeal to all those interested in the evolution of language, from advanced undergraduates to linguists, cognitive scientists, human biologists, and archaeologists.

Author : Spike Gildea
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780195109528
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.2X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book On Reconstructing Grammar written by Spike Gildea and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how to combine grammaticalization theory with the comparative method to reconstruct the grammar of Proto-Languages. To showcase the methodology, seven morphosyntactically distinct verbal systems in the Cariban family--three ergative, three nominative, and one inverse--are reconstructed. Spike Gildea presents detailed data in his reconstruction of Proto-Carib verbal and nominal morphologies. The inverse verbal system reconstructs to Proto-Carib; the other six are innovative, and reconstruct to Proto-Carib nonfinite source-constructions.

Author : Spike Gildea
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027298564
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reconstructing Grammar written by Spike Gildea and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2000-07-15 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparative linguistics and grammaticalization theory both belong to the broader category of historical linguistics, yet few linguists practice both. The methods and goals of each group seem largely distinct: comparative linguists have by and large avoided reconstructing grammar, while grammaticalization theoreticians have either focused on explaining attested historical change or used internal reconstruction to formulate hypotheses about processes of change. In this collection, some of the leading voices in grammaticalization theory apply their methods to comparative data (largely drawn from indigenous languages of the Americas), showing not only that grammar can be reconstructed, but that the process of reconstructing grammar can yield interesting theoretical and typological insights.

Author : Philip Baldi
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 311088609X
Total Pages : 768 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology written by Philip Baldi and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. 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.

Author : Anthony Fox
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 9780198700012
Total Pages : 394 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Linguistic Reconstruction written by Anthony Fox and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1995 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Anthony Fox's new textbook is primarily for students with an elementary knowledge of general linguistics who need an up-to-date introduction to historical linguistics, particularly to new developments in the theory and practice of linguistic reconstruction." -- Back cover.

Author : Carlotta Viti
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9027268932
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Perspectives on Historical Syntax written by Carlotta Viti and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses topics of historical syntax from different theoretical perspectives, ranging from Indo-European studies to generative grammar, functionalism, and typology. It examines mechanisms of syntactic change such as reanalysis, analogy, grammaticalization, independent drift, and language contact, as well as procedures of syntactic reconstruction. More than one factor is considered to explain a syntactic phenomenon, since it is maintained that an accurate account of multiple causations, of both structural and social nature, is to be preferred to considerations of economy. Special attention is given to the relationship between principles of syntactic theory and a search for data reliability through the methods of corpus linguistics. Data are drawn from a variety of languages, including Hittite, Vedic, Ancient Greek, Latin, Romance, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Austroasiatic, Gulf of Guinea creoles. The book may be therefore of interest for specialists of these languages in addition to scholars and advanced students of syntax and historical linguistics.