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Rarely Used Structures and Lesser-Studied Languages

Rarely Used Structures and Lesser-Studied Languages PDF Author: Emily Manetta
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000693198
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
This book investigates a set of marginal syntactic structures which have been singularly influential in the development of generative theory, spotlighting lesser-studied languages of the Indic family while emphasizing implications for linguistic theory more broadly. After first defining what constitutes a marginal syntactic structure, this book then undertakes a micro-comparative approach to the rigorous exploration of fundamental properties of human language, including displacement, ellipsis, unbounded dependencies, and the role of clausal peripheries in such languages as Kashmiri and Romani. In so doing, Manetta interrogates and ultimately affirms the relevance of marked and marginal strings which have proven to be crucial to generative syntax while simultaneously advocating for the role of lesser-studied languages to the study of such properties. This book is key reading for graduate students and researchers in linguistics and syntax more specifically, as well as those interested in the study of Indic languages.

Rarely Used Structures and Lesser-Studied Languages

Rarely Used Structures and Lesser-Studied Languages PDF Author: Emily Manetta
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000693198
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Book Description
This book investigates a set of marginal syntactic structures which have been singularly influential in the development of generative theory, spotlighting lesser-studied languages of the Indic family while emphasizing implications for linguistic theory more broadly. After first defining what constitutes a marginal syntactic structure, this book then undertakes a micro-comparative approach to the rigorous exploration of fundamental properties of human language, including displacement, ellipsis, unbounded dependencies, and the role of clausal peripheries in such languages as Kashmiri and Romani. In so doing, Manetta interrogates and ultimately affirms the relevance of marked and marginal strings which have proven to be crucial to generative syntax while simultaneously advocating for the role of lesser-studied languages to the study of such properties. This book is key reading for graduate students and researchers in linguistics and syntax more specifically, as well as those interested in the study of Indic languages.

Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages

Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages PDF Author: Evangelia Adamou
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027263817
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
The articles compiled in this volume offer new insights into the wealth of prosodic and syntactic phenomena involved in the encoding of information structure categories. They present data from languages which are rarely, if ever, taken into account in the most prominent approaches in information structure theory, and which belong to the Afroasiatic, Amerindian, Australian, Caucasian, and Niger-Congo language stocks. In addition to the significant descriptive value of these pioneering contributions, several studies also draw attention to previously undescribed or typologically rare phenomena. By adapting a variety of methods to under-described and endangered languages, ranging from experimental to naturalistic corpus studies, this volume also aims to serve as an invitation for further research in this direction.

Language Engineering for Lesser-studied Languages

Language Engineering for Lesser-studied Languages PDF Author: Sergei Nirenburg
Publisher: IOS Press
ISBN: 1586039547
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
"Technologies enabling computers to process specific languages facilitate economic and political progress of societies where these languages are spoken. Development of methods and systems for language processing is therefore a worthy goal for national governments as well as for business entities and scientific and educational institutions in every country in the world. As work on systems and resources for the 'lower-density' languages becomes more widespread, an important question is how to leverage the results and experience accumulated by the field of computational linguistics for the major languages in the development of resources and systems for lower-density languages. This issue has been at the core of the NATO Advanced Studies Institute on language technologies for middle- and low-density languages held in Georgia in October 2007. This publication is a collection - of publication-oriented versions - of the lectures presented there and is a useful source of knowledge about many core facets of modern computational-linguistic work. By the same token, it can serve as a reference source for people interested in learning about strategies that are best suited for developing computational-linguistic capabilities for lesser-studied languages - either 'from scratch' or using components developed for other languages. The book should also be quite useful in teaching practical system- and resource-building topics in computational linguistics."--Site Web de l'éditeur.

Perspectives on Information Structure in Austronesian Languages

Perspectives on Information Structure in Austronesian Languages PDF Author: Atsuko Utsumi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781013291920
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Information structure is a relatively new field to linguistics and has only recently been studied for smaller and less described languages. This book is the first of its kind that brings together contributions on information structure in Austronesian languages. Current approaches from formal semantics, discourse studies, and intonational phonology are brought together with language specific and cross-linguistic expertise of Austronesian languages. The 13 chapters in this volume cover all subgroups of the large Austronesian family, including Formosan, Central Malayo-Polynesian, South Halmahera-West New Guinea, and Oceanic. The major focus, though, lies on Western Malayo-Polynesian languages. Some chapters investigate two of the largest languages in the region (Tagalog and different varieties of Malay), others study information-structural phenomena in small, underdescribed languages. The three overarching topics that are covered in this book are NP marking and reference tracking devices, syntactic structures and information-structural categories, and the interaction of information structure and prosody. Various data types build the basis for the different studies compiled in this book. Some chapters investigate written texts, such as modern novels (cf. Djenar's chapter on modern, standard Indonesian), or compare different text genres, such as, for example, oral narratives and translations of biblical narratives (cf. De Busser's chapter on Bunun). Most contributions, however, study natural spoken speech and make use of spoken corpora which have been compiled by the authors themselves. The volume comprises a number of different methods and theoretical frameworks. Two chapters make use of the Question Under Discussion approach, developed in formal semantics (cf. the chapters by Latrouite & Riester; Shiohara & Riester). Riesberg et al. apply the recently developed method of Rapid Prosody Transcription (RPT) to investigate native speakers' perception of prosodic prominences and boundaries in Papuan Malay. Other papers discuss theoretical consequences of their findings. Thus, for example, Himmelmann takes apart the most widespread framework for intonational phonology (ToBI) and argues that the analysis of Indonesian languages requires much simpler assumptions than the ones underlying the standard model. Arka & Sedeng ask the question how fine-grained information structure space should be conceptualized and modelled, e.g. in LFG. Schnell argues that elements that could be analysed as "topic" and "focus" categories, should better be described in terms of 'packaging' and do not necessarily reflect any pragmatic roles in the first place. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Syntactic Structures

Syntactic Structures PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3112316002
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".

Meaning and the Structure of Language

Meaning and the Structure of Language PDF Author: Wallace L. Chafe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description


Deconstructing Ergativity

Deconstructing Ergativity PDF Author: Maria Polinsky
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190256605
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Nominative-accusative and ergative are two common alignment types found across languages. In the former type, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are expressed the same way, and differently from the object of a transitive. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive appear in the same form, the absolutive, and the transitive subject has a special, ergative, form. Ergative languages often follow very different patterns, thus evading a uniform description and analysis. A simple explanation for that has to do with the idea that ergative languages, much as their nominative-accusative counterparts, do not form a uniform class. In this book, Maria Polinsky argues that ergative languages instantiate two main types, the one where the ergative subject is a prepositional phrase (PP-ergatives) and the one with a noun-phrase ergative. Each type is internally consistent and is characterized by a set of well-defined properties. The book begins with an analysis of syntactic ergativity, which as Polinsky argues, is a manifestation of the PP-ergative type. Polinsky discusses diagnostic properties that define PPs in general and then goes to show that a subset of ergative expressions fit the profile of PPs. Several alternative analyses have been proposed to account for syntactic ergativity; the book presents and outlines these analyses and offers further considerations in support of the PP-ergativity approach. The book then discusses the second type, DP-ergative languages, and traces the diachronic connection between the two types. The book includes two chapters illustrating paradigm PP-ergative and DP-ergative languages: Tongan and Tsez. The data used in these descriptions come from Polinsky's original fieldwork hence presenting new empirical facts from both languages.

The World Atlas of Language Structures

The World Atlas of Language Structures PDF Author: Martin Haspelmath
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199255911
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 712

Book Description
"The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) provides ... 142 maps showing the geographic distribution of structural linguistic features"--Intro.

Sign Languages

Sign Languages PDF Author: Joseph C. Hill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429665148
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Sign Languages: Structures and Contexts provides a succinct summary of major findings in the linguistic study of natural sign languages. Focusing on American Sign Language (ASL), this book: offers a comprehensive introduction to the basic grammatical components of phonology, morphology, and syntax with examples and illustrations; demonstrates how sign languages are acquired by Deaf children with varying degrees of input during early development, including no input where children create a language of their own; discusses the contexts of sign languages, including how different varieties are formed and used, attitudes towards sign languages, and how language planning affects language use; is accompanied by e-resources, which host links to video clips. Offering an engaging and accessible introduction to sign languages, this book is essential reading for students studying this topic for the first time with little or no background in linguistics.

Visible Variation

Visible Variation PDF Author: Pamela M. Perniss
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110198851
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Book Description
It has been argued that properties of the visual-gestural modality impose a homogenizing effect on sign languages, leading to less structural variation in sign language structure as compared to spoken language structure. However, until recently, research on sign languages was limited to a number of (Western) sign languages. Before we can truly answer the question of whether modality effects do indeed cause less structural variation, it is necessary to investigate the similarities and differences that exist between sign languages in more detail and, especially, to include in this investigation less studied sign languages. The current research climate is testimony to a surge of interest in the study of a geographically more diverse range of sign languages. The volume reflects that climate and brings together work by scholars engaging in comparative sign linguistics research. The 11 articles discuss data from many different signed and spoken languages and cover a wide range of topics from different areas of grammar including phonology (word pictures), morphology (pronouns, negation, and auxiliaries), syntax (word order, interrogative clauses, auxiliaries, negation, and referential shift) and pragmatics (modal meaning and referential shift). In addition to this, the contributions address psycholinguistic issues, aspects of language change, and issues concerning data collection in sign languages, thereby providing methodological guidelines for further research. Although some papers use a specific theoretical framework for analyzing the data, the volume clearly focuses on empirical and descriptive aspects of sign language variation.