Walter Bisang

List of John Benjamins publications for which Walter Bisang plays a role.

Journals

Title

Paradigm Change: In the Transeurasian languages and beyond

Edited by Martine Robbeets and Walter Bisang

[Studies in Language Companion Series, 161] 2014. xix, 345 pp.
Subjects Historical linguistics | Morphology | Syntax
The paucity or absence of inflectional morphology (radical analyticity) and the omission of verbal arguments with no concomitant agreement (radical pro-drop) are well-known characteristics of East and mainland Southeast Asian languages (EMSEA). Both of them have a special status in typology and… read more
Bisang, Walter 2018 Nominal and verbal classification: A comparative perspectiveThe Diachrony of Classification Systems, McGregor, William B. and Søren Wichmann (eds.), pp. 241–282 | Chapter
The present paper starts from the observation that classification is cross-linguistically very widespread in the domain of the noun and rather rare in the domain of the verb. It argues that this asymmetry is not arbitrary. It is motivated by two conditions: (i) the markers used for classification… read more
Bisang, Walter 2016 Finiteness, nominalization, and information structure: Convergence and divergenceFiniteness and Nominalization, Chamoreau, Claudine and Zarina Estrada-Fernández (eds.), pp. 13–42 | Article
The correlation between finiteness and nominalization is frequently discussed in the literature. This paper will introduce information structure as a third factor that has an important impact on processes of grammaticalization. Nominalized verb forms can be used in the formation of relative clauses… read more
This paper will present a historical explanation of radical pro-drop based on the strength of morphological paradigms. It will start out from the observation that East and mainland Southeast Asian languages (EMSEA) with their reduced or absent morphology are radical pro-drop, while West African… read more
Robbeets, Martine and Walter Bisang 2014 Chapter 1. When paradigms changeParadigm Change: In the Transeurasian languages and beyond, Robbeets, Martine and Walter Bisang (eds.), pp. 1–20 | Chapter
Bisang, Walter, Wang Luming and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky 2013 Subjecthood in Chinese: Neurolinguistics meets typologyIncreased Empiricism: Recent advances in Chinese Linguistics, Jing-Schmidt, Zhuo (ed.), pp. 23–48 | Article
The existence of subject-object asymmetry in Chinese is a point of controversy. From a UG perspective, the syntactic category of subject is invariably the same, while LaPolla (1990) argues that there is no such category in Chinese. This paper takes an intermediate position and starts out from the… read more
Bisang, Walter 2010 Grammaticalization in Chinese: A construction-based accountGradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization, Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Graeme Trousdale (eds.), pp. 245–277 | Article
The present paper shows that constructions are the driving force of grammaticalization in Chinese. It will be argued that this is due to two typological properties: the relative freedom with which a lexical item can be assigned to different grammatical functions (precategoriality in Late Archaic… read more
Bisang, Walter 2010 Precategoriality and syntax-based parts of speech: The case of Late Archaic ChineseParts of Speech: Empirical and theoretical advances, Ansaldo, Umberto, Jan Don and Roland Pfau (eds.), pp. 65–86 | Article
Bisang, Walter 2008 Grammaticalization and the areal factor: The perspective of East and mainland Southeast Asian languagesRethinking Grammaticalization: New perspectives, López-Couso, María José and Elena Seoane (eds.), pp. 15–35 | Article
Grammaticalization in East and mainland Southeast Asian languages is characterized by a set of properties which seem to be typical of that area. The aim of this paper is to present these properties and to examine them from the perspective of several prominent approaches to grammaticalization:… read more
Bisang, Walter 2008 4. Precategoriality and argument structure in Late Archaic ChineseConstructional Reorganization, Leino, Jaakko (ed.), pp. 55–88 | Article
Bisang, Walter 2008 Precategoriality and syntax-based parts of speech: The case of Late Archaic ChineseParts of Speech: Descriptive tools, theoretical constructs, Ansaldo, Umberto, Jan Don and Roland Pfau (eds.), pp. 568–589 | Article
Late Archaic Chinese is a precategorial language, i.e., a language whose lexical items are not preclassified in the lexicon for the syntactic functions of N and V. This will be shown on the basis of structural-conceptual criteria as those developed by Croft (2000) and Sasse (1993b) as well as on… read more
Bisang, Walter 2007 Some general thoughts about linguistic typology and dialogue linguisticsDialogue and Culture, Grein, Marion and Edda Weigand (eds.), pp. 53–72 | Article
Bisang, Walter 2006 Widening the perspective: Argumenthood and syntax in Chinese, Japanese and TagalogDatives and Other Cases: Between argument structure and event structure, Hole, Daniel, André Meinunger and Werner Abraham (eds.), pp. 331–381 | Article
Bisang, Walter 1998 Grammaticalization and Language Contact, Constructions and PositionsThe Limits of Grammaticalization, Giacalone Ramat, Anna and Paul J. Hopper (eds.), pp. 13–58 | Article
Grammaticalization processes in East and mainland South East Asian languages show remarkable areal parallels within the domain of the verb and the noun. Since language contact increases processes of reanalysis it supports grammaticalization and its cross-linguistic similarity. Grammaticalization… read more
Bisang, Walter 1993 Classifiers, Quantifiers and Class Nouns in HmongStudies in Language 17:1, pp. 1–51 | Article
Four operations of nominal concretization are crucial for presenting a typology of classifier languages: individualization, classification, relationalization (possession), and referentialization. The first three of these operations are at work in the Hmong classifier system. The development of… read more