A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi

A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi
Author: William McGregor
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 639
Release: 1990
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027230250

Phonetic, phonological, morphologic, semantic, and syntactic description of Gooniyandi, a language of the southern Kimberleys; relationship with nearby languages, especially Bunuba; kinship terms.

Structure and Function – A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories

Structure and Function – A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories
Author: Christopher S. Butler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2003-06-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027296537

This book and its companion volume present a detailed guide to three major structural-functional theories: Functional Grammar, Role and Reference Grammar and Systemic Functional Grammar. This first volume provides the necessary background through a discussion of the characteristics of functional theories, followed by a brief analysis of six approaches to language in the light of this discussion. These chapters lead to a characterization of a smaller set of ‘structural-functional grammars’, among which FG, RRG and SFG are central. An overview of each of these theories in relation to the simplex clause is then presented, followed by a more critical comparison. The remainder of the book deals with the structure and meaning of phrasal units, the representation of situations, and the treatment of tense, aspect, modality and polarity, across the three theories. A major feature of the book is the use of examples from corpora of English and other languages, which serve not only to exemplify theoretical and descriptive claims, but also at times to challenge them.

The Grammar of Interactives

The Grammar of Interactives
Author: Bernd Heine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192871498

This book explores a domain of discourse processing referred to as 'interactive grammar', based on an analysis of grammatical descriptions of over 100 languages spoken across the world. While much previous work has treated interactive grammar as a fairly marginal part of language, Bernd Heine describes it here as a distinct category that contrasts with sentence grammar both in its functions and its structural behavior. He identifies ten types of interactives - i.e. extra-clausal expressions of linguistic discourse: attention signals, directives, discourse markers, evaluatives, ideophones, interjections, response elicitors, response signals, social formulae, and vocatives. The analysis reveals that speakers make use of two contrasting modes for structuring their discourses, both of which are needed for successful communication: one is sentence grammar, which has a propositional format and analytic organization; the other is interactive grammar, which has a holophrastic organization and a focus on social communication. While the argument structure of sentence grammar is shaped by the propositional format of sentences, that of interactive grammar is shaped by the indexical nature of the situation of discourse. This distinction shows interesting correlations both with findings from neurolinguistic studies on differential activity in the two hemispheres of the human brain, and with observations from social psychology on the differences between systems of reasoning and judgment.

A Grammar of Ngardi

A Grammar of Ngardi
Author: Thomas Ennever
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 795
Release: 2021-11-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110752433

Ngardi is a highly endangered language with fewer than 10 remaining speakers and is no longer being acquired by children. Despite the limited circulation of a draft dictionary (Cataldi, 2011), there has been no published reference grammar of this language. Upon publication, this work will constitute the most comprehensive grammar of any Ngumpin-Yapa language. The Ngardi language exhibits many of the same typologically interesting features first identified in the related language Warlpiri—namely phenomena of non-configurational syntax and null anaphora. This grammar also brings to light a number of unique properties which will be of interest to linguistic typologists and formal theorists. The registration of arguments both through case marking on free NPs as well as in pronominal enclitics is similar to Warlpiri but differs in its detail—particularly in the ability to register various non-core cases (e.g. locative and allative) as ‘arguments’ in the pronominal complex. Within the verbal system, Ngardi is notably for a large number of verbal inflections (~20) which mark various distinctions in tense, aspect and mood, as well as associated motion and speaker-centric directionality. Ngardi exhibits a highly articulated system of complex predication, covering both complex verb and serial verb constructions. Other typologically interesting aspects of the language include the presence of dedicated apprehensional constructions and interesting interactions between negation and clausal modality. The descriptive value of this grammar is enhanced by its sustained regional comparison of the linguistic features of Ngardi with those of neighbouring Ngumpin-Yapa and Western Desert languages. This grammar (and a forthcoming dictionary) of Ngardi will be of great significance to both those few remaining Ngardi speakers as well as the next generation of Ngardi people for whom accessible published materials will be an invaluable resource.

Meaning and Universal Grammar

Meaning and Universal Grammar
Author: Cliff Goddard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027230633

Volume one of a set of studies that is founded on the idea that universal grammar is based on - indeed, inseparable from - meaning. The theoretical framework is the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka and developed in collaboration with Cliff Goddard.

Yearbook of Morphology 2003

Yearbook of Morphology 2003
Author: Geert Booij
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2003-08-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1402012721

The Yearbook of Morphology series, published since 1988, has proven to be an eminent support for the current upswing of morphological research and has set a standard for morphological research. The 2003 volume deals with the phenomenon of complex predicates consisting of a verb preceded by a preverb, presents historical evidence on the change of preverbal elements into prefixes, and discusses morphological parsing, and the role of paradigmatical relations in analogical change. It is relevant to theoretical, descriptive, and historical linguists, morphologists, phonologists, computational linguists, and psycholinguists.

A Grammar of Bardi

A Grammar of Bardi
Author: Claire Bowern
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 868
Release: 2012-08-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110278189

The Bardi language is currently spoken by fewer than 10 people. The language is a member of the Nyulnyulan family, a small non-Pama-Nyungan family in northwest Australia. This book is a reference grammar of the language. The 16 chapters include information on phonetics and phonology, nominal and verbal morphology, and syntax, as well as an ethnographic sketch of traditional life. A selection of texts is also included. It is the first published full study of a Nyulnyulan language.

Competition and Variation in Natural Languages

Competition and Variation in Natural Languages
Author: Mengistu Amberber
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2005-06-30
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0080459773

This volume combines different perspectives on case-marking: (1) typological and descriptive approaches of various types and instances of case-marking in the languages of the world as well as comparison with languages that express similar types of relations without morphological case-marking; (2) formal analyses in different theoretical frameworks of the syntactic, semantic, and morphological properties of case-marking; (3) a historical approach of case-marking; (4) a psycholinguistic approach of case-marking. Although there are a number of publications on case related issues, there is no volume such as the present one, which exclusively looks at case marking, competition and variation from a cross-linguistic perspective and within the context of different contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of language. In addition to chapters with broad conceptual orientation, the volume offers detailed empirical studies of case in a number of diverse languages including: Amharic, Basque, Dutch, Hindi, Japanese, Kuuk Thaayorre, Malagasy and Yurakaré. The volume will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in the cognitive sciences, general linguistics, typology, historical linguistics, formal linguistics, and psycholinguistics. The book will interest scholars working within the context of formal syntactic and semantic theories as it provides insight into the properties of case from a cross-linguistic perspective. The book also will be of interest to cognitive scientists interested in the relationship between meaning and grammar, in particular, and the human mind's capacity in the mapping of meaning onto grammar, in general.

Linguistics: An Introduction Answer Key

Linguistics: An Introduction Answer Key
Author: William B. McGregor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2015-04-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 147257768X

This is the print edition of the Answer Key for Linguistics: An Introduction by William B. McGregor. It features a full set of answers to the questions in the main textbook and supports lecturers in their teaching from the book. It is fully illustrated and features two appendices covering tasks that students can take on as independent projects.

Grammatical Relations in Change

Grammatical Relations in Change
Author: Jan Terje Faarlund
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2001-07-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027298041

The eleven selected contributions making up this volume deal with grammatical relations, their coding and behavioral properties, and the change that these properties have undergone in different languages. The focus of this collection is on the changing properties of subjects and objects, although the scope of the volume goes beyond the central problems pertaining to case marking and word order. The diachrony of syntactic and morphosyntactic phenomena are approached from different theoretical perspectives, generative grammar, valency grammar, and functionalism. The languages dealt with include Old English, Mainland Scandinavian, Icelandic, German and other Germanic languages, Latin, French and other Romance languages, Northeast Caucasian, Eskimo, and Popolocan. This book provides an opportunity to compare different theoretical approaches to similar phenomena in different languages and language families.