William Foley
List of John Benjamins publications for which William Foley plays a role.
Clause linkage and Nexus in Papuan languages Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy: Syntax and pragmatics, Bril, Isabelle (ed.), pp. 27–50 | Article
2010 Interclausal relations in Papuan languages and in particular their prototypical clause chaining structures have long presented serious descriptive problems. These have been analyzed variously as instances of subordination, coordination, and even a third unique type of relationship, cosubordination.… read more
Universal constraints and local conditions in Pidginization: Case studies from New Guinea Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 21:1, pp. 1–44 | Article
2006 This paper looks at the processes involved in the genesis of three pidgins of New Guinea. I will argue that the main principle at work in the formation of the morphosyntax of pidgins is a general human capacity for language simplification, but that these processes of simplification are subject both… read more
Semantic parameters and the unaccusative split in the Austronesian language family Studies in Language 29:2, pp. 385–430 | Article
2005 A fundamental issue facing all models of grammar is the mapping problem: how to link the semantic arguments defined by the lexical verb in a clause to their formal realizations in morphosyntax. This paper investigates this problem across a range of intransitive verb types, often grouped into… read more
Toward a Universal Typology of the Noun Phrase Studies in Language 4:2, pp. 171–199 | Article
1980