This book studies the syntax of switch-reference and its implications for the theory of grammar. Switch-reference, found in many genetically and geographically diverse languages, is a phenomenon whereby referential identity between subjects of hierarchically adjacent clauses is encoded by the presence of a morpheme, usually suffixed to the verb of the subordinate clause. This book argues that switch-reference should be analysed as a syntactic rather than a purely pragmatic or functional feature of language.

This work provides an overview of a wide range of approaches to written text analysis. It includes both classic and specially commissioned papers by distinguished authors, which share a common linguistic framework. The pieces contain a variety of focuses from the patterning of paragraphs, sections or whole texts to the organization of clauses, individual expressions and single words, as well as a variety of text-types. The examples used range from pure science through social science, academic journals, weekly magazines and newspapers, to literary narratives. This collection forms the basis for an course on written text analysis that should be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In this volume, the author reviews the results of research on language performance and proposes a model of production and comprehension. Although recent developments in linguistics are taken into account, consideration of other requirements of a performance model leads to the conclusion that the grammar the speaker has in mind differs from the grammar as currently conceived of by most linguists. The author is also critical of recent computer simulations of language performance on the basis that they fall short of describing what goes on in human production and comprehension. The author therefore proposes that the basic issues must be rethought and new theoretical foundations reformulated, in order to arrive at a viable theory of language functioning. In developing the framework of the model presented in this book, requirements of flexibility in the performance mechanisms, the probabilistic nature of comprehension processes, and the interleaving of linguistic rules with context and knowledge of the world are emphasized.

In recent work the imperative seems to have attracted much less attention than the interrogative, perhaps because it appears to be a rather simple structure, easily accounted for in a page or two in manuals of English grammar, and probably also because in so many respects it seems to be a rather awkward exception to otherwise powerful generalisations. This has meant that quite general analyses sometimes find it necessary to relegate the imperative to a footnote or exclude it from the discussion altogether, and that even when linguists have addressed themselves specifically to an account of imperatives, they have sometimes concluded that the imperative is simply an inherently idiosyncratic construction where we should not expect to find the tidy regularities we look for elsewhere. However, this study demonstrates that there are many interesting regularities to be accounted for, and that useful generalisations can be made which relate the imperative to other constructions. Throughout the work the emphasis is on detailed description of present-day usage, with the aim of identifying patterns which have previously been ignored and seeking explanations for those which have previously been dismissed as arbitrary. As well as examining the syntactic behaviour of the imperative, the book proposes a semantic characterisation quite different from the types usually adopted, and links this to a pragmatic account of the wide range of ways in which imperatives may be used and interpreted. There is no attempt to formulate syntactic rules within a specific theoretical framework; rather, generalisations are stated which any descriptively adequate grammar, of whatever theoretical slant, should be able to capture.

An investigation of the serial verb construction, this work engages central issues in syntactic theory-complex predicates, clausal architecture and syntactic variation.

This book examines the frequencies of the six possible basic word (or constituent) orders (SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS) provides a typologically grounded explanation for those frequencies in terms of three independent, functional principles of linguistic organization. From a database of nearly 1,000 languages and their basic constituent orders, a sample of 400 languages was produced that is statistically representative of both the genetic and areal distributions of the world's languages. This sample reveals the following relative frequencies (in order from high to low) of basic constituent order types: (1) SOV and SVO, (2) VSO, (3) VOS and OVS, (4) OSV. It is argued that these relative frequencies can be explained to be the result of the possible interactions of three fundamental functional principles of linguistic organization. Principle 1, the thematic information principle, specifies that initial position is the cross-linguistically favoured position for clause-level thematic information. Principle 2, the verb-object bonding principle, describes the cross-linguistic tendency for a transitive verb and its object to form a more tightly integrated unit, syntactically and semantically, than does a transitive verb and its subject. Principle 3, the animated principle, describes the cross-linguistic tendency for semantic arguments which are either more animate or more agentive to occur earlier in the clause. Each principle is motivated independently of the others, drawing on cross-linguistic data from more than 80 genetically and typologically diverse languages. Given these three independently motivated functional principles, it is argued that the relative frequency of basic constituent order types is due to the tendency for the three principles to be maximally realized in the world's languages. SOV and SVO languages are typologically most frequent because such basic orders reflect all three principles. The remaining orders occur less frequently because they reflect fewer of the principles. The 1,000-language database and the genetic and areal classification frames are published as appendices to the volume.

English Grammar: The Basics offers a clear, non-jargonistic introduction to English grammar and its place in society. Rather than taking a prescriptive approach, this book helps the reader become aware of the social implications of choices they make to use standard or non-standard (regional/dialect) forms. Readers will consider: * what grammar is and how it fits into the structure of language; * how grammar functions in the school curriculum, the press, broadcasting and social media, as well as how these outlets reflect and reinforce our attitudes towards grammar; * differences between speech and writing, as well as between formality and informality; * major different approaches to theorising and describing grammar from important grammarians, including Noam Chomsky and Michael Halliday. Featuring a glossary of key terms and practical tips and insights from the author's 50+ years of language teaching experience around the world, this book is for anyone who has ever found themselves questioning the 'rules' of the English language.

In order to bring some minimal amount of order to the chaos that almost inevitably attends the use of the word 'existential' in a linguistic investigation, the author reserved the term existential sentence (ES) to designate all and only those English sentences in which there appears an occurrence of the unstressed, non-deictic, 'existential' there. Thus the term will be used as a characterisation of a class of syntactic objects, not as a semantic description. With ES sentences including formations such as 'There were several people talking' and 'There ensued a riot', perhaps nowhere else do we find so clearly displayed the complexity and subtlety of the syntactic and semantic interactions which determine the nature of human language.

In the last few years categorial grammars have been the focus of dramatically expanded interest and activity, both theoretical and computational. This book, the first introduction to categorical grammars, is written as an objective critical assessment. Categorial grammars offer a radical alternative to the phrase-structure paradigm, with deep roots in the philosophy of language, logic and algebra. Mary McGee Wood outlines their historical evolution and discusses their formal basis, starting with a quasi-canonical core and considering a number of possible extensions. She also explores their treatment of a number of linguistic phenomena, including passives, raising, discontinuous dependencies and non-constituent coordination, as well as such general issues as word order, logic, psychological plausibility and parsing. This introduction to categorial grammars will be of interest to final year undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in current theories of grammar, including comparative, descriptive, and computational linguistics.

This book presents an account of certain problems of morphological analysis that occurs within a theoretical framework that derives its inspiration from recent studies of the lexicon in generative grammar. The starting point is the controversy about the proper analysis of synthetic compounds. Are they really compounds, or phrasal derivations, or do they constitute a type of word formation of their own?

Typical cases of agreement are easy to identify, but where the boundaries of agreement lie depend on what aspects of the agreement relation are considered to be defining properties. It is a short step from viewing agreement in the traditional way, as a matching of features, to defining agreement as any relation that ensures consistency of information in two separate structures. This book takes as its topic agreement as it is traditionally conceived, one that only involves morphosyntactic categories.

What is the relationship between the structure of existential sentences and their meaning? How do hearers interpret existential sentences using pragmatic assumptions? This study attempts to account for the relationship between the structure of existential sentences (ES) and their meaning. The study of ES has received a great deal of attention because the construction has complex syntactic properties, is associated with restrictions of a semantic nature, and provides an interesting area for investigation at a pragmatic level.

This book presents a description of the phonology and morphology of the nominal class system in Fula, a dialect which displays 21 nominal classes. These are identified by suffixes, which can attach to nominal, verbal and adjectival stems. The main objective of this work is to show, through a lexical analysis, that there are only two monomorphemic marker variants, and that the distribution of these variants is predictable.

According to Chomsky, to learn a language is to develop a grammar for it - a generative grammar which assigns a definite structure and a definite meaning to each of a definite set of sentences. This forms the speaker's linguistic competence, which represents a distinct faculty of the mind, called the faculty of language. This view has been widely criticised, from many separate angles and by many different authors, including some of Chomsky's pupils. As one of the earliest and most persistent critics, Professor Matthews is especially well placed to tie these arguments together. He concludes that Chomsky's notion of competence finds no support within linguistics. It can be defended, if at all, only by assuming a traditional philosophy of mind. The notion of grammar should therefore be restricted to descriptive linguistics, and should not have psychological interpretations foisted on it. Peter Matthews' book covers a variety of topics, from morphology to speech acts, from word meaning to the study of language variation, and from blending in syntax to the relation of language and culture. This wide range of subject matter is incisively handled in a style which is both elegant and economical.

This groundbreaking collection showcases Jenny Cheshire's influential work in bringing greater attention to quantitative analysis of socio-grammatical variation and builds upon her contributions with new lines of inquiry pushing sociolinguistic research forward. Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field, the volume is structured in six parts with a particular focus on syntactic, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic variation and change, each section turning a lens on a different aspect of socio-grammatical variation. The first sections of the volume focus on the role of structure, its relevance for sociolinguistic production and perception and the impact of social structure on formal structure. Two sections look at the interface of variationist research with other aspects of linguistic research, including generative syntax and discourse-pragmatic features. The final sections consider the importance of integrating broader external factors in socio-grammatical variation, exploring the impact of interactional pressures in the sociolinguistic environment and the role of multi-ethnic contact varieties. Taken together, this volume demonstrates the critical role of socio-grammatical variation in our understanding of language change as a holistic process.

Arabic L2 Interlanguage is a significant and timely addition to the field of Second Language Acquisition, providing valuable insight into the development of 'interlanguage', the interim language of early beginners, in learners of Arabic. This book: Clearly establishes what interlanguage is and why it should form an important part of foreign language teaching Presents the reader with a sequence in which six English-speaking learners of Arabic acquire the language Makes use of the rich morphological and syntactic property of Arabic to offer a new perspective on the field of Second Language Acquisition. Arabic L2 Interlanguage contributes directly towards building a more comprehensive theoretical framework for explaining how L2s are acquired. It will be key text for SLA scholars as well as an important resource for graduate students in Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching.

Structure and Function of the Arabic Verb is a corpus-based study that unveils the morpho-syntax and the semantics of the Arabic verb. Approaches to verbal grammatical categories - the constituents of verbal systems - often rely on either semantic-pragmatic or syntactic analyses. This research bridges the gap between these two distinct approaches through a detailed analysis of Taxis, Aspect, Tense and Modality in Standard Arabic. This is accomplished by showing, firstly, some basic theoretical concerns shared by both schools of thought, and, secondly, the extent to which semantic structures and invariant meanings mirror syntactic representations. Maher Bahloul's findings also indicate that the basic constituents of the verbal system in Arabic, namely the Perfect and the Imperfect, are systematically differentiated through their invariant semantic features in a markedness relation. Finally, this study suggests that the syntactic derivation of verbal and nominal clauses are sensitive to whether or not verbal categories are specified for their feature values, providing therefore a principled explanation to a long-standing debate. This reader friendly book will appeal to both specialists and students of Arabic linguistics, language and syntax.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the phonological system of Basque available in English. Basque is a morphologically rich and fairly regular language with a number of active phonological rules that are limited to certain morphological environments. In addition, it has a high degree of dialectical fragmentation. These characteristics of Basque make this language a good test ground to investigate the interaction of phonological rules both with each other and with morphological processes, which the author does within the Lexical Phonology framework. The effects of rule interaction on feature geometry are a major concern - how phonological operations modify underlying structures and how the structures created by one phonological rule can serve as input to other rules. These effects are examined in a study of the rather peculiar behaviour of Basque affricates. Another area which requires particular attention, and in which Basque dialects differ widely, is prosody. Along with stress-accent systems of different types, Basque also possesses pitch-accent or restricted tonal systems in some of its western dialects. This book should be of interest to advanced students and teachers of linguistics, especially Romance linguistics and lexical phonology.

The proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages in Leipzig 2013 offer current formal investigations into Slavic morphology, phonology, semantics, syntax and information structure. In addition to papers of the main conference, the volume presents those of two special workshops: "Formal Perspectives and Diachronic Change in Slavic Languages" and "Various Aspects of Heritage Language". The following languages are addressed: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), Bulgarian, Czech, Macedonian, Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Resian, Slovak and Slovene.

This collection of 15 articles reflects Edward Keenan's long-standing research interests in the comparative syntax of the languages of the world. It includes two seminal 'foundation' articles, Noun Phrase Accessibility and Universal Grammar (with Bernard Comrie) and Towards a Universal Definition of 'Subject of'. Most of the other articles have appeared in a variety of relatively inaccessible places, and so this book brings together for the first time a large body of work supporting the research directions taken in the foundation articles. In addition, one article of a psycholinguistic sort was specially prepared for this volume.

An Introduction to English Grammar provides a comprehensive overview of all aspects of English grammar. The first part of the book ('The Grammar') provides a step-by-step introduction to the key topics in English grammar. The second part ('The Applications') shows how a grasp of these topics can be helpful in resolving usage problems, in developing a clear writing style, and in mastering punctuation and spelling. A whole chapter, 'English in Use', is devoted to illustrating the grammatical features of a wide range of modern text types, including emails, Facebook pages, and 'tweets'. It also looks at the special grammatical features of English in everyday conversation. Each chapter is followed by two sets of exercises. The first set can be used in self-study or in the classroom. The second set deals with more advanced topics, and can be used for classroom discussion or essay writing. This fourth edition has been fully revised and updated and includes: clearer descriptions and improved presentation new material on word structure and word formation new exercises, examples and extracts updated further reading Assuming no prior knowledge of English grammar, this book is ideal for beginning students on a one-semester course and provides everything a student needs on the theory and practice of English usage. A comprehensive Glossary of grammatical terms is included and a website provides invaluable additional exercises.

Kazakh: A Comprehensive Grammar is the first thorough analysis of Kazakh to be published in English. The volume is systematically organized to enable users to find information quickly and easily, and provides a thorough understanding of Kazakh grammar, with special emphasis given to syntax. Features of this book include: descriptions of phonology, morphology and syntax; examples from contemporary usage; tables summarizing discussions, for reference; a bibliography of works relating to Kazakh. Kazakh: A Comprehensive Grammar reflects the richness of the language, focusing on spoken and written varieties in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It is an essential purchase for all linguists and scholars interested in Kazakh or in Turkic languages as well as advanced learners of Kazakh.

In Style, John Haynes provides a lively introduction to the study of expression in relation to meaning. Style: * introduces readers to the key areas in the study of style through practical exercises * encourages an interest in and sensitivity to words and structures * enables students to recognize contrasts within and between texts * heightens awareness with regards to word choice, meaning, communicative purpose and stylistic convention * examines an enormous variety of text-types; both literary and non-literary, spoken and written * in addition to numerous exercises, contains suggestions for project work.

This book explores several topics in Cree morphology, syntax and discourse structure. Cree, an Algonquian language, is non-configurational: the grammatical relations of subject and object are not expressed by word order or other constituent structure relations, as they are in a configurational language like English. Instead, subjects and objects are expressed by means of the inflection on the verb. Cree is typical of non-configurational languages in allowing a great deal of word order variation. This study examines in detail aspects of the Plains Cree dialect, giving a valuable insight into the structure of this endangered language.

The volume comprises papers that were presented at the 14th European conference on "Formal Description of Slavic Languages 10.5" at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. The conference focuses on formal approaches to Slavic phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The present contributions describe interesting data patterns found in Slavic languages and analyze them from the perspective of formal grammar, including generative syntax, Distributed Morphology, formal semantics and others.