Overview

Semantic alignment refers to a type of language that has two means of morphosyntactically encoding the arguments of intransitive predicates, typically treating these as an agent or as a patient of a transitive predicate, or else by a means of a treatment that varies according to lexical aspect. This collection of new typological and case studies is the first book-length investigation of semantically aligned languages for three decades. Leading international typologists explore the differences and commonalities of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of these languages to languages without them. They look at how such systems arise or disappear and provide areal overviews of Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, the areas where semantically aligned languages are concentrated. This book will interest typological and historical linguists at graduate level and above.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mark Donohue (, Monash University) ,  Søren Wichmann (, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 3.40cm , Length: 24.10cm
Weight:   0.892kg
ISBN:  

9780199238385

ISBN 10:   0199238383
Pages:   488
Publication Date:   24 January 2008
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Part I Introductory and General 1: Søren Wichmann: The Study of Semantic Alignment: retrospect and state of the art 2: Mark Donohue: Semantic Alignment Systems: what's what and what's not 3: Andrej Malchukov: Split Intransitives, Experiencer Objects, and 'Transimpersonal' Constructions: (re-)establishing the connection 4: Peter Arkadiev: Thematic Roles, Event Structure, and Argument Encoding in Semantically Aligned Languages Part II Eurasia 5: Johanna Nichols: Why are Stative-Active Languages Rare in Eurasia? Typological Perspective on Split Subject Marking 6: Edward J. Vajda: Losing Semantic Alignment: From Proto-Yeniseic to Modern Ket 7: Olesya Khanina: Intransitive Split in Tundra Nenets, or How Much Semantics Can Hide Behind Syntactic Alignment 8: Gontzal Aldai: From Ergative Case-Marking to Semantic Case-Marking: the case of historical Basque Part III The Pacific 9: Marian Klamer: The Semantics of Semantic Alignment in Eastern Indonesia: Forms, Semantics, Geography, Possible Diffusion 10: Gary Holton: The Emergence of Stative-Active Systems in North Halmahera, Indonesia 11: Naomi Tsukida: Verb Classification in Amis Part IV The Americas 12: Marianne Mithun: The Emergence of Agentive Patient Systems in Core Argument Marking 13: Regina Pustet and David Rood: Argument Dereferentialization in Lakhota 14: Enrique L. Palancar: The Emergence of the Active/Stative Alignment in Otomi 15: Maura Valázquez-Castillo: Voice and Transitivity in Guaraní 16: Swintha Danielsen and Tania Granadillo: Agreement in Two Arawak Languages: Baure and Kurripako 17: Alejandra Vidal: Semantic Motivations of Pilagá Subject-Marking References Index of Languages Index of Terms

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Author Information

Mark Donohue is a Professor at Monash University, in Melbourne. His published work includes articles in Language, Studies in Language, Australian Journal of Linguistics, and Oceanic Linguistics, and four books. Søren Wichmann is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, and an Assistant Professor of Native American Languages and Cultures at Leiden University. His published work includes The Relationship among the Mixe-Zoquean Languages of Mexico (University of Utah Press 1995) and articles in Journal of Linguistics, International Journal of American Linguistics, and Annual Review of Anthropology.

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