The Role of Semantic, Pragmatic, and Discourse Factors in the Development of Case

Editors
ORCID logoJóhanna Barðdal | University of Bergen
Shobhana L. Chelliah | University of North Texas
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027205759 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027289926 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00
 
Google Play logo
The aim of this volume is to bring non-syntactic factors in the development of case into the eye of the research field, by illustrating the integral role of pragmatics, semantics, and discourse structure in the historical development of morphologically marked case systems. The articles represent fifteen typologically diverse languages from four different language families: (i) Indo-European: Vedic Sanskrit, Russian, Greek, Latin, Latvian, Gothic, French, German, Icelandic, and Faroese; (ii) Tibeto-Burman, especially the Bodic languages and Meithei; (iii) Japanese; and (iv) the Pama-Nyungan mixed language Gurindji Kriol. The data also show considerable diversity and include elicited, archival, corpus-based, and naturally occurring data. Discussions of mechanisms where change is obtained include semantically and aspectually motivated synchronic case variation, discourse motivated subject marking, reduction or expansion of case marker distribution, case syncretism motivated by semantics, syntax, or language contact, and case splits motivated by pragmatics, metonymy, and subjectification.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 108] 2009.  xx, 432 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“This volume brings together empirically rich studies on how factors of syntactic structure, discourse usage, and lexical valency shape the development of case marking in various languages around the world. The diachronic orientation of this research fits well with the 'historical turn' that characterizes modern typology, and the present volume therefore provides a key resource for future research on the typology of case marking and alignment.”
“This volume is an important collection of in-depth studies dealing with case evolution, case variation, case syncretism and case loss in a variety of languages. As contributions to the volume convincingly show, the evolution of case systems cannot be explained in syntactic terms exclusively, but it is guided by a variety of factors among which semantic, pragmatic, and discourse factors play an important role. The volume contributes not only to the field of historical linguistics but also to linguistic theory insofar as it extends the scope of usage-based theories to diachronic studies.”
Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Abraham, Werner & Elisabeth Leiss
2012. The Case Differential: Syntagmatic Versus Paradigmatic Case – Its Status In Synchrony And Diachrony. Transactions of the Philological Society 110:3  pp. 316 ff. DOI logo
Barðdal, Jóhanna
2018. Chapter 1. Introduction. In Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects [Studies in Language Companion Series, 200],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Cennamo, Michela
2012. Introduction: Argument Realization and Change. Transactions of the Philological Society 110:3  pp. 311 ff. DOI logo
Cennamo, Michela
2020. The actualization of new voice patterns in Romance. In Historical Linguistics 2017 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 350],  pp. 110 ff. DOI logo
Frotscher, Michael, Guus Kroonen & Jóhanna Barðdal
2020. Indo-European Inroads into the Syntactic-Etymological Interface: A Reconstruction of the PIE verbal root*menkʷ-‘to be short; to lack’ and its Argument Structure. Historical Linguistics 133:1  pp. 62 ff. DOI logo
Gildea, Spike & Jóhanna Barðdal
2023. From grammaticalization to Diachronic Construction Grammar. Studies in Language 47:4  pp. 743 ff. DOI logo
Kagan, Olga
2020. The Semantics of Case, DOI logo
Smirnova, Elena
2015. Constructionalization and constructional change. In Diachronic Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 18],  pp. 81 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2008048557 | Marc record