Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations (Oxford Linguistics)

✍ Scribed by Irina Nikolaeva

• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 552
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book explores the nature of finiteness, one of most commonly used notions in descriptive and theoretical linguistics but possibly one of the least understood. Scholars representing a variety of theoretical positions seek to clarify what it is and to establish its usefulness and limitations. In doing so they reveal cross-linguistically valid correlations between subject licensing, subject agreement, tense, syntactic opacity, and independent clausehood; show how these properties are associated with finiteness; and discuss what this means for the content of the category. The issues explored include how different grammatical theories represent finiteness; whether the finite/nonfinite distinction is universal; whether there are degrees of finiteness; whether the syntactic notion of finiteness has a semantic corollary; whether and how finiteness is subject to change; and how finiteness features in language acquisition.Irina Nikolaeva opens the book by describing the history of finiteness and its place in current thinking and research. She then introduces the chapters of the book, comparing the authors' perspectives and showing what they have in common. The book is then divided into four parts. Part I considers the role finiteness plays in formal syntactic theories and Part II its deployment in functional theories and as the subject of research in typology. Parts III and IV look respectively at the finite/nonfinite opposition in individual languages and at the role finiteness plays in linguistic change and linguistic development. The book is written and structured to appeal to scholars and students of syntax and general linguistics at graduate level and above.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Authors......Page 9
Abbreviations......Page 12
1 Introduction......Page 16
Part I: Finiteness in Formal Theories......Page 36
2 Three domains of finiteness: a Minimalist perspective......Page 38
3 Finiteness in non-transformational syntactic frameworks......Page 74
Part II: Finiteness in Functional Theories and Typology......Page 104
4 Deconstructing categories: finiteness in a functional-typological perspective......Page 106
5 Categories that make finiteness: discreteness from a functional perspective and some of its repercussions......Page 130
6 Constructional Economy and nonfinite independent clauses......Page 153
Part III: Finiteness in Individual Languages......Page 196
7 Clause structure and verbal forms in Nakh-Daghestanian languages......Page 198
8 In what ways can finite and nonfinite clauses differ? Evidence from Russian......Page 265
9 Verbal and nominalized finite clauses in Turkish......Page 320
Part IV: Finiteness in Diachrony and Language Acquisition......Page 348
10 Diachrony and finiteness: subordination in the dialects of southern Italy......Page 350
11 Insubordination and its uses......Page 381
12 Finiteness in first and second language acquisition......Page 447
References......Page 500
B......Page 538
G......Page 539
K......Page 540
M......Page 541
P......Page 542
T......Page 543
Z......Page 544
C......Page 545
E......Page 546
F......Page 547
I......Page 548
N......Page 549
Q......Page 550
S......Page 551
Z......Page 552