The Typology of Semantic Alignment

✍ Scribed by Mark Donohue, Soren Wichmann

• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 482
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Semantic alignment refers to a type of language that has two means of morphosyntactically encoding the arguments of intransitive predicates, typically treating these as an agent or as a patient of a transitive predicate, or else by a means of a treatment that varies according to lexical aspect. This collection of new typological and case studies is the first book-length investigation of semantically aligned languages for three decades. Leading international typologists explore the differences and commonalities of languages with semantic alignment systems and compare the structure of these languages to languages without them. They look at how such systems arise or disappear and provide areal overviews of Eurasia, the Americas, and the south-west Pacific, the areas where semantically aligned languages are concentrated. This book will interest typological and historical linguists at graduate level and above.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Notes on the contributors......Page 8
Abbreviations and glossing conventions......Page 12
Part I. Introductory and General......Page 18
1. The study of semantic alignment: retrospect and state of the art......Page 20
2. Semantic alignment systems: what’s what, and what’s not......Page 41
3. Split intransitives, experiencer objects, and ‘transimpersonal’ constructions: (re-)establishing the connection......Page 93
4. Thematic roles, event structure, and argument encoding in semantically aligned languages......Page 118
Part II. Eurasia......Page 136
5. Why are stative-active languages rare in Eurasia? A typological perspective on split-subject marking......Page 138
6. Losing semantic alignment: from Proto-Yeniseic to Modern Ket......Page 157
7. Intransitive split in Tundra Nenets, or how much semantics can hide behind syntactic alignment......Page 179
8. From ergative case marking to semantic case marking: the case of historical Basque......Page 214
Part III. The Pacific......Page 236
9. The semantics of semantic alignment in eastern Indonesia......Page 238
10. The rise and fall of semantic alignment in North Halmahera, Indonesia......Page 269
11. Verb classification in Amis......Page 294
Part IV. The Americas......Page 312
12. The emergence of agentive systems in core argument marking......Page 314
13. Argument dereferentialization in Lakota......Page 351
14. The emergence of active/stative alignment in Otomi......Page 374
15. Voice and transitivity in Guaraní......Page 397
16. Agreement in two Arawak languages: Baure and Kurripako......Page 413
17. Affectedness and viewpoint in Pilagá (Guaykuruan): a semantically aligned case-marking system......Page 429
References......Page 448
F......Page 470
M......Page 471
V......Page 472
Z......Page 473
F......Page 474
N......Page 475
T......Page 476
Z......Page 477
C......Page 478
H......Page 479
P......Page 480
U......Page 481
Z......Page 482