The Algonquian Inverse

The Algonquian Inverse
Author: Will Oxford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2023-11-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192699873

This book serves as a definitive reference for the inverse morphology of the Algonquian languages, which has attracted much attention in typological and theoretical linguistics. Will Oxford describes the patterning of inverse morphology across the Algonquian family and presents a framework for understanding the structure and function of the Algonquian inverse that is empirically driven and typologically grounded. He presents data from all documented Algonquian languages and considers not only the morphology of the inverse construction but also its syntax and pragmatics, giving equal weight to diachronic, typological, functional, and formal perspectives. From the integration of these perspectives, a simple and coherent understanding of the nature of the inverse emerges. The key proposal is that the inverse is "deep" in some contexts and "shallow" in others. In interactions between two third persons, the inverse is a "deep" patient voice construction that inverts the canonical morphology, syntax, and pragmatics of a transitive clause. In interactions between a third person and a first or second person, the inverse is a "shallow" hierarchical agreement pattern implemented through a spurious use of patient voice morphology, inverting the canonical morphology of a transitive clause but having no effect on syntax or pragmatics. This split analysis, which reflects the likely diachronic development of the Algonquian inverse, is argued to have various benefits, including the resolution of a longstanding controversy over the syntactic status of the inverse.

The Languages of Native North America

The Languages of Native North America
Author: Marianne Mithun
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 800
Release: 2001-06-07
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780521298759

This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.

Voice: Form and Function

Voice: Form and Function
Author: Barbara A. Fox
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 389
Release: 1994-04-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027276560

The volume's central concern is grammatical voice, traditionally known as diathesis, and its classical manifestations as Active, Middle, and Passive. While numerous problems in the meaning, syntax, and morphology of these categories in Indo-European remain unsolved, their counterparts in more exotic languages have raised still further questions. What discourse functions and diachronic events unite 'voice' as a recognizable phenomenon across languages? How are they typically grammaticalized? What stages do children go through in learning them? How does 'voice' link up with ergativity and with other categories and constructions such as the Inverse and the Antipassive? The authors in this volume have different perspectives on these problems: they discuss voice, e.g., from a typological-universal view, in relation to language acquisition and to ergativity, and from diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives.

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages
Author: Daniel Siddiqi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2019-09-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1351810278

The Routledge Handbook of North American Languages is a one-stop reference for linguists on those topics that come up the most frequently in the study of the languages of North America (including Mexico). This handbook compiles a list of contributors from across many different theories and at different stages of their careers, all of whom are well-known experts in North American languages. The volume comprises two distinct parts: the first surveys some of the phenomena most frequently discussed in the study of North American languages, and the second surveys some of the most frequently discussed language families of North America. The consistent goal of each contribution is to couch the content of the chapter in contemporary theory so that the information is maximally relevant and accessible for a wide range of audiences, including graduate students and young new scholars, and even senior scholars who are looking for a crash course in the topics. Empirically driven chapters provide fundamental knowledge needed to participate in contemporary theoretical discussions of these languages, making this handbook an indispensable resource for linguistics scholars.

Voice and Inversion

Voice and Inversion
Author: Talmy Givón
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 411
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902722918X

This collection aims first to establish a structure-independent, language-independent definition of pragmatic voice, and more specifically then a universal functional definition of “inverse”. The grammar and pragmatic function of the four major voice constructions — direct-active, inverse, passive, antipassive — are surveyed using narrative texts from 14 languages: Koyukon (Athabascan), Plains Cree (Algonquian), Chepang (Tibeto-Burman), Squamish and Bella Coola (Salish), Sahaptin (Sahaptian), Kutenai (isolate), Surinam Carib (Carib), Spanish and Greek (Indo-European), Korean, Maasai (Nilotic), Cebuano and Karao (Philippine). The comparative quantified study of pragmatic voice functions tests the validity of a universal functional definition of voice and in particular of “inverse”. The cross-language comparison of grammatical structures that code the various voice functions then lays down the foundation for a non-trivial cross-language typology of “inverse”.

Endangered Languages

Endangered Languages
Author: Andrew Simpson
Publisher: Helmut Buske Verlag
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-09-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3875489543

Peter K. Austin / Andrew Simpson: Introduction; Nicholas Evans: Warramurrungunji undone: Australian languages in the 51st Millenium; Knut J. Olawsky: Obvious OVS in Urarina syntax; Larry M. Hyman / Imelda Udoh: Length harmony in Leggbó: a counter-universal?; Nora England: The influence of Mayan-speaking linguists on the state of Mayan linguistics; Pamela Munro: Oblique subjects in Garifuna; Marina Chumakina / Anna Kibort / Greville G. Corbett: Determining a language's feature inventory: person in Archi; Friederike Lüpke: Vanishing voice – the morphologically zero-coded passive of Jalonke; Anju Saxena: The ergative in Kinnauri narratives; John Hajek: Sound systems of the Asia-Pacific: some basic typological observations; Martina Faller: The Cusco Quechua Reportative evidential and rhetorical relations; Emmon Bach: Deixis in Northern Wakashan: recovering lost forms; Roberto Zavala: Inversion and obviation in Mesoamerica

Grammatical Voice

Grammatical Voice
Author: M. H. Klaiman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1991-11-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521360012

Categories of the verb in natural languages include tense, aspect, modality (mood) and voice. Among these, voice, in its rich and diverse manifestations, is perhaps the most complex. But most prior research concentrates on only certain types, predominantly passives. Voice expresses relations between a predicate and a set of nominal positions - or their referents - in a clause or other structure. Grammatical Voice is the first typological study of voice systems based on a multi-language survey. It introduces a threefold classification of voice types, in the first place distinguishing passivization phenomena (derived voice) from active-middle systems (basic voice); and further, distinguishing each of these from pragmatically grounded voice behaviours, such as focus and inverse systems. As the first comprehensive study of voice systems and voice typology, this book makes a significant contribution to current research in linguistics and grammatical theory.

Papers of the Forty-Third Algonquian Conference

Papers of the Forty-Third Algonquian Conference
Author: Monica Macaulay
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438455240

Papers of the forty-third Algonquian Conference held at University of Michigan in October 2011. The papers of the Algonquian Conference have long served as the primary source of peer-reviewed scholarship addressing topics related to the languages and societies of Algonquian peoples. Contributions, which are peer-reviewed submissions presented at the annual conference, represent an assortment of humanities and social science disciplines, including archeology, cultural anthropology, history, ethnohistory, linguistics, literary studies, Native studies, social work, film, and countless others. Both theoretical and descriptive approaches are welcomed, and submissions often provide previously unpublished data from historical and contemporary sources, or novel theoretical insights based on firsthand research. The research is commonly interdisciplinary in scope and the papers are filled with contributions presenting fresh research from a broad array of researchers and writers. These papers are essential reading for those interested in Algonquian world views, cultures, history, and languages. They build bridges among a large international group of people who write in different disciplines. Scholars in linguistics, anthropology, history, education, and other fields are brought together in one vital community, thanks to these publications.

Language at Large

Language at Large
Author: Alexandra Aikhenvald
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 630
Release: 2011-07-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004207686

The volume brings together important essays on syntax and semantics by Aikhenvald and Dixon, highlighting their expertise in various fields of linguistics. The first part focusses on linguistic typology, covering case markers used on verbs, argument-determined constructions, unusual meanings of causatives, the semantic basis for a typology, word-class-changing derivations, speech reports and semi-direct speech. The second part concentrates on documentation and analysis of previously undescribed languages, from South America and Indigenous Australia. The third part addresses a variety of issues in grammar and lexicography of English. This includes pronouns with transferred reference, comparative constructions, features of the noun phrase, and the discussion of 'twice'. The treatment of Australian Aboriginal words in dictionaries is discussed in the final chapter.

Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations

Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations
Author: Pirkko Suihkonen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2012
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027205930

This book is a collection of articles dealing with various aspects of grammatical relations and argument structure in the languages of Europe and North and Central Asia (LENCA). Topics covered with respect to individual languages are: split-intransitivity (Basque), causativization (Agul), transitives and causatives (Korean and Japanese), aspectual domain and quantification (Finnish and Udmurt), head-marking principles (Athabaskan languages), and pragmatics (Eastern Khanty and Xibe). Typology of argument-structure properties of 'give' (LENCA), typology of agreement systems, asymmetry in argument structure, typology of the Amdo Sprachbund, spatial realtors (Northeastern Turkic), core argument patterns (languages of Northern California), and typology of grammatical relations (LENCA) are the topics of articles based on cross-linguistic data. The broad empirical sweep and the fine-tuned theoretical analysis highlight the central role of argument structure and grammatical relations with respect to a plethora of linguistic phenomena.