Description
| Product ID: | 9780198733294 |
| Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Series: | Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics |
| Title: | The Morphosyntax of Transitions |
| Subtitle: | A Case Study in Latin and Other Languages |
| Authors: | Author: Victor Acedo-Matellan |
| Page Count: | 336 |
| Subjects: | Historical and comparative linguistics, Historical & comparative linguistics, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Latin |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating This book examines the cross-linguistic expression of changes of location or state. It is based on the idea that languages encode information either on the verb or on a non-verbal element such as an affix or preposition. It focuses principally on Latin, with important comparisons drawn with other language families, particularly Slavic. This book examines the cross-linguistic expression of changes of location or state, taking as a starting point Talmy''s typological generalization that classifies languages as either ''satellite-framed'' or ''verb-framed''. In verb-framed languages, such as those of the Romance family, the result state or location is encoded in the verb. In satellite-framed languages, such as English or Latin, the result state or location is encoded in a non-verbal element. These languages can be further subdivided into weak satellite-framed languages, in which the element expressing result must form a word with the verb, and strong satellite-framed languages, in which it is expressed by an independent element: an adjective, a prepositional phrase or a particle. In this volume, Víctor Acedo-Matellán explores the similarities between Latin and Slavic in their expression of events of transition: neither allows the expression of complex adjectival resultative constructions and both express the result state or location of a complex transition through prefixes. They are therefore analysed as weak satellite-framed languages, along with Ancient Greek and some varieties of Mandarin Chinese, and stand in contrast to strong satellite-framed languages such as English, the Germanic languages in general, and Finno-Ugric. This variation is expressed in terms of the morphological properties of the head that expresses transition, which is argued to be affixal in weak but not in strong satellite-framed languages. The author takes a neo-constructionist approach to argument structure, which accounts for the verbal elasticity shown by Latin, and a Distributed Morphology approach to the syntax-morphology interface. |
| Imprint Name: | Oxford University Press |
| Publisher Name: | Oxford University Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2016-02-18 |
