Formal Issues in Austronesian Linguistics

✍ Scribed by Mark Campana (auth.), Ileana Paul, Vivianne Phillips, Lisa Travis (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 263
• Series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 49
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Austronesian languages have long raised interesting questions for generative theories of syntax and morphology. The papers in this volume encompass some of these traditional questions and place them in newer theoretical contexts. Some of the papers also address new issues which add to our understanding of members of this language family on one side and the nature of linguistic theories on the other. There are three broad issues that re-occur throughout the volume - the role and analysis of verbal morphology, the nature of the subject or the topic in these languages, and the interaction of syntax and specificity. The papers in this volume show that as formal theories become more precise, a wider range of language data can be captured, and as the inventory of language data grows, the accuracy of formal linguistic theories improves.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xi
The Structure of Inflection in Palauan....Pages 1-25
Morphology is Structure: A Malagasy Test Case....Pages 27-47
Continuative Aspect and the Dative Clitic in Kambera....Pages 49-63
Malagasy Existentials: A Syntactic Account of Specificity....Pages 65-83
The Interaction between Prefix and Root: The Case of Maha - in Malagasy....Pages 85-104
Another Look at Tagalog Subjects....Pages 105-116
Raising and the Order of Clausal Constituents in the Philippine Languages....Pages 117-143
The Topic and Y Indefinite in Cebuano....Pages 145-165
The L-Syntax/S-Syntax Boundary: Evidence from Austronesian....Pages 167-194
Indonesian Voice and A-Bar Movement....Pages 195-213
Object Agreement in Palauan: Specificity, Humanness, Economy and Optimality....Pages 215-245
Back Matter....Pages 247-265

✦ Subjects

Theoretical Languages; Austronesian Languages; Syntax; Comparative Linguistics