TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

This work covers the three methods of Romanization: transliteration (Duroiselle's system); transcription (early, conventional, IPA and typewritten types); and the combined method (Minn Latt's system).

The volume presents new insights into two basic theoretical issues hotly debated in recent work on grammaticalization and language contact: grammatical replication and grammatical borrowability. The key issues are: How can grammatical replication be distinguished from other, superficially similar processes of contact-induced linguistic change, and under what conditions does it take place? Are there grammatical morphemes or constructions that are more easily borrowed than others, and how can language contact account for areal biases in the borrowing (vs. calquing) of grammatical formatives? The book is a major contribution to the ongoing theoretical discussion concerning the relationship between grammaticalization and language contact on a broad empirical basis.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

A revival of interest in morphology has taken place during recent years and the subject is seen now as a relatively autonomous subdiscipline of linguistics. As one of the important areas of theoretical research in formal linguistics, morphology has attracted linguists to investigate its relations to syntax, semantics, phonology, psycholinguistics and language change. The aim of the Yearbook of Morphology, therefore, is to support and enforce the upswing of morphological research and to give an overview of the current issues and debates at the heart of this revival.

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert

Benjamin Smith Lyman (1835-1920) was an American geologist and mining engineer who worked for the Japanese government as a foreign expert in the 1870s. He is famous among linguists for an article about a set of Japanese morphophonemic alternations known as rendaku (sometimes translated as "sequential voicing"). Lyman published this article in 1894, several years after he returned to the United States, and it contains a version of what linguists today call Lyman's Law. This book includes a brief biography of Lyman and explains how an amateur linguist was able to make such a lasting contribution to the field. It also reproduces Lyman's 1894 article as well as his earlier article on the pronunciation system of Japanese, each followed by extensive commentary. In addition, it offers an English translation of a thorough critique of Lyman's 1894 article, published in 1910 by the prominent Japanese linguist Ogura Shinpei. Lyman's work on rendaku included much more than just Lyman's Law, and the final chapter of this book assesses all his proposals from the standpoint of a modern researcher.

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Communication and Linguistic Theory

Over the past decade, many issues leading towards refining the model have been identified for a theory of syntax under minimalist assumptions. One of the central questions within the current theoretical model, Phase Theory, is architectural in nature: Assuming a minimal structure of the grammar, how does the computational system manipulate the grammar to construct a well-formed derivation that takes items from the mental lexicon to the interpretive interfaces? This collection addresses this issue by exploring the design of the grammar and the tools of the theory in order to shed light on the nature of the interpretive interfaces, Logical Form and Phonetic Form, and their role in the syntactic computation. The chapters in this volume collectively contribute to a better understanding of the mapping from syntax to PF on the one hand, especially issues concerning prosody and Spell-Out, and semantic interpretation at LF on the other, including interpretive and architectural issues of more conceptual nature. Apart from careful case studies and specific data analysis for a number of languages, the material contained here also has repercussions for Phase Theory in general, theoretical underpinnings as well as modifications of syntactic mechanisms.

This book is the first comprehensive survey of modals and modal constructions in the languages of Europe. It is a collaborative effort between scholars from Europe and the United States, stemming from a workshop on Modals in the Languages of Europe in Valencia. The aim of this book is to describe the properties of modals and modal constructions in the European area and to compare the systems in individual languages or language families from an areal and genetic perspective. For the sake of contrast, the book also looks at the expression of modality in some languages just outside of Europe. The book consists of fourteen chapters on modal systems in individual languages or language families, written by experts in the respective languages, and an introductory and concluding chapter, written by the editors. The book gives both a description of the modals in the individual languages and an account of the nature and status of modals in general. It provides the reader with a theoretical account of how modals and modal constructions are grammaticalized. This theoretical account is informed by the parameters of grammaticalization of Christian Lehmann. These parameters were chosen because they are language-independent, as opposed to more language specific criteria (for instance, the NICE-criteria for English). The parameters themselves are examined as well for their suitability as part of any theory of grammaticalization. The book thus gives readers access to a collection of data on modality that surpasses most works in this field and also provides a fresh perspective on issues of grammaticalization and language contact. It is therefore of interest to scholars of modality, language contact and areal linguistics, grammaticalization theory and typology.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Kolyma Yukaghir is a seriously endangered language spoken by about 50 people in the northeast of Asiatic Russia. It is one of the two surviving languages of the Yukaghir family, which is considered by different scholars either as an isolate left over from before the expansion of other languages and language families into Siberia, or as a distant relative of the Uralic family. In many ways, Yukaghir fits the grammatical type widespread among the languages of Siberia, namely that of predominantly verb-final dependent-marking language with relatively rich agglumative morphology and deranking strategies of clause linking. Furthermore, it has a number of typologically remarkably features, which will be of interest to general linguists irrespective of their theoretical orientation. These include Yukaghir focus-marking system, differential object marking based on global effects of person hierarchy, the obligatory use of bound possesive markers to indicate non-coreference of the possessor with the subject, elaborated switch-reference system, initimate interaction between aspect and valence-changing derivation, etc. The book incorporates all major components of descriptive grammar, from phonology to syntax, with a special chapter on coreference and discourse coherence, annotated and translated sample texts, a Yukaghir-English vocabulary, and a subject index. The description is based on extensive field materials and richly exemplified by non-elicited data. The organization of the book facilitates its use as a reference grammar, with numerous cross-references between sections and concise summaries of interrelated phenomena discussed in various parts of the grammar. The book is of interest to scholars of Uralic and Siberian languages, linguistic typology, and general linguistics.

This book focuses on current theoretical and empirical research into countability in the nominal domain, and to a lesser extent in the verbal domain. The presented state-of-the-art studies are situated within compositional semantics combined with the theory of mereology, and draw on a wealth of data, some of which have hitherto been unknown, from a number of typologically distinct languages. Some contributions propose enrichments of classical extensional mereology with topological and temporal notions as well as with type theory and probabilistic models. The book also presents analyses that rely on cutting-edge empirical research (experimental, corpus-based) into meaning in language. It is suitable as a point of departure for original research or material for seminars in semantics, philosophy of language, psycholinguistics and other fields of cognitive science. It is of interest not only to a semanticist, but also to anybody who wishes to gain insights into the contemporary research into countability.

This book makes a novel contribution to our understanding of Romance SE constructions by combining both diachronic and synchronic theoretical perspectives along with a range of empirical data from different languages and dialects. The collection, divided into four sections, proposes that SE constructions may be divided into one class that is the result of grammaticalization of a reflexive pronoun up the syntactic tree, from Voice and above, and another class that has resulted from the reanalysis of reflexive and anticausative morphemes as an argument expletive or verbal morpheme generated in positions from Voice and below. The contributions, while varied in both empirical content and theoretical approach, all serve to highlight different aspects of the overarching idea that SE constructions have evolved from these two distinct grammaticalization paths. The book appeals to researchers and academics in the field and closes with a unified approach to various SE constructions that makes important use of its status as a verbal morpheme. In addition to aligning a novel string of empirical contributions under a new theoretical umbrella, a clear research direction emerges from this volume based on the morphosyntactic nature of SE itself: Is it a clitic, an agreement morpheme, or a verbal morpheme?

This pioneering study combines insights from philosophy and linguistics to develop a novel framework for theorizing about linguistic meaning and the role of context in interpretation. A key innovation is to introduce explicit representations of context - assignment variables - in the syntax and semantics of natural language. The proposed theory systematizes a spectrum of 'shifting' phenomena in which the context relevant for interpreting certain expressions depends on features of the linguistic environment. Central applications include local and non-local contextual dependencies with quantifiers, attitude ascriptions, conditionals, questions, and relativization. The result is an innovative philosophically informed compositional semantics compatible with the truth-conditional paradigm. At the forefront of contemporary interdisciplinary research into meaning and communication, Semantics with Assignment Variables is essential reading for researchers and students in a diverse range of fields.

Traditional grammar and current theoretical approaches towards modelling grammatical knowledge ignore language in interaction: that is, words such as huh, eh, yup or yessssss. This groundbreaking book addresses this gap by providing the first in-depth overview of approaches towards interactional language across different frameworks and linguistic sub-disciplines. Based on the insights that emerge, a formal framework is developed to discover and compare language in interaction across different languages: the interactional spine hypothesis. Two case-studies are presented: confirmationals (such as eh and huh) and response markers (such as yes and no), both of which show evidence for systematic grammatical knowledge. Assuming that language in interaction is regulated by grammatical knowledge sheds new light on old questions concerning the relation between language and thought and the relation between language and communication. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the relation between language, cognition and social interaction.

To achieve successful communication, it is crucial to say clearly what we mean, but, at the same time, we need to pay attention to the form of our utterances, to avoid misunderstandings and the risk of offending our interlocutors. To avoid these pitfalls, we use a special category of utterances called 'indirect speech acts' (ISAs) that enable an optimal balance between clarity and politeness. But how do interpreters identify the meaning of these ISAs? And how does the social context influence the use of ISAs? This book attempts to answer these questions. It deals with the main theoretical and empirical questions surrounding the meaning and usage of ISAs, drawing on the latest research and neuroimaging data. Adopting a truly interdisciplinary perspective, it will appeal to students and scholars from diverse backgrounds, and anyone interested in exploring this phenomenon, which is so pervasive in our daily lives.

This pioneering volume lays out a set of methodological principles to guide the description of interpersonal grammar in different languages. It compares interpersonal systems and structures across a range of world languages, showing how discourse, interpersonal relationships between the speakers, and the purpose of their communication, all play a role in shaping the grammatical structures used in interaction. Following an introduction setting out these principles, each chapter focuses on a particular language - Khorchin Mongolian, Mandarin, Tagalog, Pitjantjatjara, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, British Sign Language and Scottish Gaelic - and explores mood, polarity, tagging, vocation, assessment and comment systems. The book provides a model for functional grammatical description that can be used to inform work on system and structure across languages as a foundation for functional language typology.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality. To discuss your book idea or submit a proposal, please contact Birgit Sievert.

Propositional attitude reports are sentences built around clause-embedding psychological verbs, like Kim believes that it's raining or Kim wants it to rain. These interact in many intricate ways with a wide variety of semantically relevant grammatical phenomena, and represent one of the most important topics at the interface of linguistics and philosophy, as their study provides insight into foundational questions about meaning. This book provides a bird's-eye overview of the grammar of propositional attitude reports, synthesizing the key facts, theories, and open problems in their analysis. Couched in the theoretical framework of generative grammar and compositional truth-conditional semantics, it places emphasis on points of intersection between propositional attitude reports and other important topics in semantic and syntactic theory. With discussion points, suggestions for further reading and a useful guide to symbols and conventions, it will be welcomed by students and researchers wishing to explore this fertile area of study.