The MIHI EST construction

The MIHI EST construction
Author: Mihaela Ilioaia
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2023-12-18
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 3111055620

This book examines the Romanian mihi est construction (Mi-e foame/frică, me.dat = is hunger/fear ‘I am hungry/ afraid’). While it disappeared from all other Romance languages to be replaced with a habeo structure, the mihi est pattern is in Romanian the most common way of expressing psychological or physiological states. By means of synchronic and diachronic corpus studies, the book investigates the status of the core arguments of the mihi est structure, i.e. the dative experiencer and the nominative state noun, as well as its evolution throughout the centuries. The data analysis reveals that the dative experiencer syntactically behaves like nominative subjects, whereas the state noun shows predicate behavior. As for the evolution of the mihi est structure, the analysis shows a certain tendency toward innovation, since in present-day Romanian it can coerce nouns coming from other semantic fields into the construction’s psychological or physiological interpretation. Could this be another unique trait of Romanian, which causes it to seemingly go against the tendency of most Romance languages toward canonical marking of core arguments?

Archaic Syntax in Indo-European

Archaic Syntax in Indo-European
Author: Brigitte Bauer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110825996

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.

Slavic on the Language Map of Europe

Slavic on the Language Map of Europe
Author: Andrii Danylenko
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2019-10-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 311063922X

Conceptually, the volume focuses on the relationship of the three key notions that essentially triggered the inception and subsequent realization of this project, to wit, language contact, grammaticalization, and areal grouping. Fully concentrated on the areal-typological and historical dimensions of Slavic, the volume offers new insights into a number of theoretical issues, including language contact, grammaticalization, mechanisms of borrowing, the relationship between areal, genetic, and typological sampling, conservative features versus innovation, and socio-linguistic aspects of linguistic alliances conceived of both synchronically and diachronically. The volume integrates new approaches towards the areal-typological profiling of Slavic as a member of several linguistic areas within Europe, including SAE, the Balkan Sprachbund and Central European groupings(s) like the Danubian or Carpathian areas, as well as the Carpathian-Balkan linguistic macroarea. Some of the chapters focus on structural affinities between Slavic and other European languages that arose as a result of either grammatical replication or borrowing. A special emphasis is placed on contact-induced grammaticalization in Slavic micro-languages

New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax

New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax
Author: Philip Baldi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2009
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 3110207540

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.

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects

Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects
Author: Jóhanna Barðdal
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027263515

Interest in non-canonically case-marked subjects has been unceasing since the groundbreaking work of Andrews and Masica in the late 70’s who were the first to document the existence of syntactic subjects in another morphological case than the nominative. Their research was focused on Icelandic and South-Asian languages, respectively, and since then, oblique subjects have been reported for language after language throughout the world. This newfangled recognition of the concept of oblique subjects at the time was followed by discussions of the role and validity of subject tests, discussions of the verbal semantics involved, as well as discussions of the theoretical implications of this case marking strategy of syntactic subjects. This volume contributes to all these debates, making available research articles on different languages and language families, additionally highlighting issues like language contact, differential subject marking and the origin of oblique subjects.

Constituent Syntax: Quantification, Numerals, Possession, Anaphora

Constituent Syntax: Quantification, Numerals, Possession, Anaphora
Author: Philip Baldi
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2010-12-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110215462

New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax: Constituent Syntax (Quantification, Numerals, Possession, Anaphora) is the third of four volumes dealing with the long-term evolution of Latin syntax, roughly from the 4th century BCE up to the 6th century CE. Essentially an extension of Volume 2, Volume 3 concentrates on additional subsentential syntactic phenomena and their long-term evolution from the earliest texts up to the Late Latin period. Included in Volume 3 are detailed treatments of quantification, numerals, possession, and deixis/anaphora. As in the other volumes, the non-technical style and extensive illustration with classical examples makes the content readable and immediately useful to the widest audience. Key features first publication to investigates the long-term syntactic history of Latin generally accessible to linguists and non-linguists theoretically coherent, formulated in functional-typological terms does not require reading fluency in Latin, since all examples are translated into English

Language Change and Functional Explanations

Language Change and Functional Explanations
Author: Jadranka Gvozdanovic
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110813750

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.

Linguistic Studies on Latin

Linguistic Studies on Latin
Author: József Herman
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 433
Release: 1994-09-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027282021

The volume contains 26 articles (17 in English, 9 in French), selected from the papers presented at the 6th International Colloquim on Latin Linguistics, organized in Budapest. The authors share a common interest in applying to the study of Latin the conceptual framework of contemporary linguistics, mainly, but not exclusively, the theoretical tools of functional grammar and of the newest trends in pragmatics. Most studies envisage Latin in its synchronic functioning, but some papers embrace diachronic processes, from the archaic period to late and even pre-Romance stages. The volume is divided in several sections: “Phonology and Morpho-syntax” includes one paper on phonology (Fr. Biville) and three on morphology (G.C.L.M. Bakkum, G. Haverling, P. Manuel Suárez). Problems of the syntax of the simple sentence, often in relation to word order phenomena, are discussed in seven articles in Section 2 (Ch. Elerick, H. Fugier, Jan R. de Jong, Marius Lavency, E. Rizzi and P. Molinelli, Hannah Rosén, M.H. Somers). The grammatical problems of the complex sentence were examined by a great many participants of the colloquium, and the third section, “Subordination”, presents eight of those papers (Gu. Calboli, P. De Carvalho, P. Cuzzolin, J. Dangel, S. Mellet, J.A.H. Mensink, P. Ramat, E. Vester). The section on text cohesion and particles — an almost traditional field of research in new Latin linguistics — includes papers by A.M. Bolkestein, C. Kroon, R. Risselada, and M.E. Torrego. The final section, “Problems of the Lexicon”, devoted to the historical-comparative or semantic descriptive analysis of lexical elements, contains four articles (R. Coleman, B. García Hernández, L. Nadjo, Chr. Touratier). An Index of Names closes the volume.

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies vol.12

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies vol.12
Author: Klaus T. Schmidt
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 8763536498

Tocharian and Indo-European Studies is an international scholarly journal dedicated to the study of two closely related Indo-European languages, Tocharian A and B, attested in Central Asian manuscripts from the second half of the first millennium AD. This volume contains 11 articles by some of the world's leading specialists on Tocharian, as well as reviews of the most important publications in the field. The important article by Werner Winter was one of the last to be written by this outstanding scholar.

Copular Constructions in Lithuanian

Copular Constructions in Lithuanian
Author: Rolandas Mikulskas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2017-06-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027267421

The fourth volume in the VARGReB series presents an in-depth investigation of Lithuanian copular constructions from the viewpoint of Cognitive Grammar. Apart from the fundamental problems of the ontology and taxonomy of copular sentences, the author also discusses a number of more specific questions on which the Lithuanian data, contrasted with those of English and other languages hitherto dealt with in the literature, can shed an interesting light, such as the nature and distinctive features of specificationals, the problem of subjecthood in this subtype of copular constructions, the aspectual semantics of copular sentences, etc. The attention given to the grammatical context of copular constructions and the multifarious relationships linking them to other construction types enhances the book’s relevance to the field of Lithuanian studies, whereas the dialogue and confrontation between the Cognitive perspective adopted by the author and the more formal approaches hitherto applied to the problem of copular sentences will add to its interest for the general reader.