The Polysynthesis Parameter

Voorkant
Oxford University Press, 4 jan 1996 - 576 pagina's
This book investigates in detail the grammar of polysynthetic languages--those with very complex verbal morphology. Baker argues that polysynthesis is more than an accidental collection of morphological processes; rather, it is a systematic way of representing predicate-argument relationships that is parallel to but distinct from the system used in languages like English. Having repercussions for many areas of syntax and related aspects of morphology and semantics, this argument results in a comprehensive picture of the grammar of polysynthetic languages. Baker draws on examples from Mohawk and certain languages of the American Southwest, Mesoamerica, Australia, and Siberia.

Vanuit het boek

Inhoudsopgave

Of Parameters and Polysynthesis
3
The Position of NPs
41
The Licensing of NPs
96
Discontinuous Constituents
138
Agreement and Clause Structure
189
Notes
238
Agreement and the Structure of
244
Notes
274
Notes
391
Adpositional Phrases
399
Notes
446
Embedded Clauses
452
On the Nature of Parameterization
496
Appendix A Abbreviations
517
Sources and Methods
524
Index
539

Notes
330
Complex Predicates
338

Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen

Populaire passages

Pagina 515 - So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel — because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Pagina vi - You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
Pagina 4 - For it must be obvious to any one who has thought about the question at all or who has felt something of the spirit of a foreign language that there is such a thing as a basic plan, a certain cut, to each language. This type or plan or structural "genius...
Pagina xii - Final work on this essay was completed while the author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. I am grateful for financial support provided by the Andrew W.
Pagina 7 - in a tightly integrated theory with fairly rich internal structure, change in a single parameter may have complex effects, with proliferating consequences in various parts of the grammar
Pagina 18 - ... word is of minor interest. In a synthetic language (Latin, Arabic, Finnish) the concepts cluster more thickly, the words are more richly chambered, but there is a tendency, on the whole, to keep the range of concrete significance in the single word down to a moderate compass. A polysynthetic language, as its name implies, is more than ordinarily synthetic. The elaboration of the word is extreme. Concepts which we should never dream of treating in a subordinate fashion are...
Pagina 18 - A phrase x is visible for 0-role assignment from a head y only if it is coindexed with a morpheme in the word containing y via: (i) an agreement relationship, or (ii) a movement relationship.
Pagina 506 - X is visible for 0-role assignment from a head Y only if it is coindexed with a morpheme in the word containing Y via (i) an agreement relationship or (ii) a movement relationship (Baker 1996: 17, 496). In Mohawk, this property is demonstrated by three sentences that Baker gives (21): (1) (a) *Ra-nuhwe'-s ne owira'a. he-like-HAB NE baby "He likes babies.
Pagina 4 - This type or plan or structural "genius" of the language is something much more fundamental, much more pervasive, than any single feature of it that we can mention, nor can we gain an adequate idea of its nature by a mere recital of the sundry facts that make up the grammar of the language.
Pagina 74 - A phrase A may be extracted out of a domain B only if B is properly governed.

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