The Emergence of Functions in Language (Hardcover)

This volume explores the question of why languages - even those spoken in the same geographical area by people who share similar social structures, occupations, and religious beliefs - differ in the meanings expressed by their grammatical systems. Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Marielle Butters outline a new methodology to explore these differences, and to discover the motivations behind the emergence of meanings. The motivations that they identify include: the communicative need triggered when the grammatical system inherently produces ambiguities; the principle of functional transparency; the opportunistic emergence of meaning, whereby unoccupied formal niches acquire a new function; metonymic emergence, whereby a property of an existing function receives a formal means of its own, thus creating a new function; and the emergence of functions through language contact. The book offers new analyses of a range of phenomena across different languages, such as benefactives and progressives in English, and point of view of the subject and goal orientation in Chadic languages. It also draws on a wealth of data from other languages including French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and a variety of less familiar Sino-Russian idiolects.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	December 2020
Authors:	Zygmunt Frajzyngier (Professor of Linguistics) • Marielle Butters (PhD student)
Dimensions:	242 x 159 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	336
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-884429-7
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Philosophy of language Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Historical & comparative linguistics > General Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Grammar, syntax, linguistic structure > General
LSN:	0-19-884429-8
Barcode:	9780198844297

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