Impersonal Constructions
A cross-linguistic perspective
Editors
| Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Institute for Linguistic Studies, St. Petersburg & Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz
| University of Lancaster
This volume offers a much needed typological perspective on impersonal constructions, which are here viewed broadly as constructions lacking a referential subject. The contributions to this volume deal with all types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates (A-impersonals), presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality (T-impersonals), and constructions with a notional subject lacking in referential properties (R-impersonals), i.e. both meteo-constructions and man-constructions. The typological discussion benefits from a good coverage of impersonality in European languages, but also includes considerations of several African, American, South-East Asian, Australian, and Oceanic languages. The variation in the cross-linguistic realization of impersonality and the diachronic pathways leading to and from impersonality documented in this volume point to a novel perspective on impersonals as transitional structures or an intermediate stage of a more basic diachronic change be it from transitive to intransitive, or from active to passive, or participant-to event-centered construction.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 124] 2011. ix, 641 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
-
List of contributors | pp. vii–x
-
IntroductionAndrej L. Malchukov and Anna Siewierska | pp. 1–16
-
Part I. Impersonal constructions: Typological and theoretical aspects
-
Towards a typology of impersonal constructions: A semantic map approachAndrej L. Malchukov and Akio Ogawa | pp. 17–54
-
Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals: Man-constructions vs. third person plural-impersonals in the languages of EuropeAnna Siewierska | pp. 57–90
-
Verbs of motion: Impersonal passivization between unaccusativity and unergativityWerner Abraham | pp. 91–126
-
On the distribution of subject properties in formulaic presentationals of Germanic and Romance: A diachronic-typological approachVolker Gast and Florian Haas | pp. 127–166
-
Part II. Impersonal constructions: Diachronic studies
-
Impersonal constructions and accusative subjects in Late LatinMichela Cennamo | pp. 167–188
-
From passive to impersonal: A case study from Italian and its implicationsAnna Giacalone Ramat and Andrea Sansó | pp. 189–228
-
Passive to anticausative through impersonalization: The case of Vedic and Indo-EuropeanLeonid Kulikov | pp. 229–254
-
Part III. Cross-linguistic variation in Impersonal constructions: Case studies
-
The Maa (Eastern Nilotic) Impersonal constructionDoris L. Payne | pp. 255–284
-
Impersonal constructions in Jóola-BanjalAlain Christian Bassène and Denis Creissels | pp. 285–306
-
Impersonal configurations and theticity: The case of meteorological predications in AfroasiaticAmina Mettouchi and Mauro Tosco | pp. 307–322
-
Revisiting impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew: Discourse-based perspectivesRuth A. Berman | pp. 323–356
-
The elephant in the room: The impersonal -ne/-te construction in PolishAnna Kibort | pp. 357–394
-
Meteorological verbs in Uralic languages – are there any impersonal structures to be foundMerja Salo | pp. 395–438
-
Impersonal constructions in KetEdward J. Vajda, Andrey Nefedov and Andrej L. Malchukov | pp. 439–458
-
Impersonal verbs in Central Alaskan Yupik (Eskimoan)Osahito Miyaoka | pp. 459–488
-
Impersonals in InnuLynn Drapeau | pp. 489–516
-
A diachronic study of the impersonal passive in AinuAnna Bugaeva | pp. 517–546
-
Referential impersonal constructions in MandarinYi Yan and Anna Siewierska | pp. 547–580
-
Impersonal constructions in some Oceanic languagesClaire Moyse-Faurie | pp. 581–606
-
Impersonal constructions in Umpithamu and the Lamalamic languagesJean-Christophe Verstraete | pp. 607–626
-
Author index | pp. 627–632
-
Language index | pp. 633–636
-
Language index | pp. 637–642
“The book is undoubtedly a welcome and useful contribution to language typology. Impersonal constructions have not been subject to a detailed and comprehensive cross-linguistic analysis before, and this volume successfully fills this gap. The editors can be praised for having been able to establish a good balance between descriptive and theoretical studies, as well as between synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The cross-linguistic coverage of the volume is almost comprehensive, with a slight bias towards Africa and Eurasia and a regrettable lack of Papuan and South and Meso American languages. Inclusion of several papers dealing with whole language families or areas instead of individual languages, thus addressing issues of intra-genetic and areal typology, is also an example to be followed.”
Peter M. Arkadiev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow on Linguist List 23.1803, 2012
Cited by
Cited by 31 other publications
No author info given
2014.
In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246],
No author info given
2015.
In Impersonals and other Agent Defocusing Constructions in French [Human Cognitive Processing, 50],
Agulló, Jorge
2022. Las oraciones de relativo predicativas en español: pronombres reasuntivos y variación dialectal.
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 138:1 ► pp. 161 ff.
Aldridge, Edith & Yuko Yanagida
2021. Two types of alignment change in nominalizations.
Diachronica 38:3 ► pp. 314 ff.
Breed, Adri & Daniël Van Olmen
2021. The Passive as an Impersonalisation Strategy in Afrikaans and Dutch: A Corpus Investigation.
Dutch Crossing 45:2 ► pp. 171 ff.
Busso, Lucia, Alessandro Lenci & Florent Perek
2020. Valency coercion in Italian.
Constructions and Frames 12:2 ► pp. 171 ff.
Cennamo, Michela
2020.
In Historical Linguistics 2017 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 350],
► pp. 110 ff.
Cigankova, Natalja
2016. Grammatical Expression of Impersonality in LSP Texts and Translations.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 ► pp. 99 ff.
Creissels, Denis, F. Neveu, B. Harmegnies, L. Hriba & S. Prévost
2018. La typologie générale des constructions impersonnelles et les constructions impersonnelles du français.
SHS Web of Conferences 46 ► pp. 15001 ff.
De Cock, Barbara & Bettina Kluge
2022. On the referential ambiguity of personal pronouns and its pragmatic consequences.
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 351 ff.
Etelämäki, Marja, Liisa Voutilainen & Elina Weiste
2021. Distributing Agency and Experience in Therapeutic Interaction: Person References in Therapists' Responses to Complaints.
Frontiers in Psychology 12
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis & Stéphane Polis
2018. The semantic map model: State of the art and future avenues for linguistic research.
Language and Linguistics Compass 12:2 ► pp. e12270 ff.
Halevy, Rivka
2016.
In Atypical predicate-argument relations [Lingvisticæ Investigationes Supplementa, 33],
► pp. 27 ff.
Halevy, Rivka
2020.
In Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew [Studies in Language Companion Series, 210],
► pp. 539 ff.
Inglese, Guglielmo
2021. Towards a typology of middle voice systems.
Linguistic Typology 0:0
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
2022. Semantic maps and temperature: Capturing the lexicon-grammar interface across languages.
Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 41:1 ► pp. 125 ff.
Legate, Julie Anne
2021. Noncanonical Passives: A Typology of Voices in an Impoverished Universal Grammar.
Annual Review of Linguistics 7:1 ► pp. 157 ff.
Magnani, Marco
2019. Non-canonical case marking on subjects in Russian and Lithuanian.
Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 1:2 ► pp. 175 ff.
Nir, Bracha
2020.
In Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew [Studies in Language Companion Series, 210],
► pp. 659 ff.
Pons, Marie-Caroline
2021. On the origin of 2nd person prefix #tV- in Trans-Himalayan languages.
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 44:2 ► pp. 226 ff.
Pustet, Regina
2015.
In The Linguistics of Temperature [Typological Studies in Language, 107],
► pp. 889 ff.
RAYNAUD, Savina
2012. Porre, comporre, disporre. Dai giudizi tetici agli enunciati tetici, ai temi e ai loro correlati.
Écho des études romanes 8:1 ► pp. 129 ff.
Rozwadowska, Bożena, Arkadiusz Nowak & Anna Bondaruk
2020.
In Beyond Emotions in Language [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 263],
► pp. 1 ff.
Schlund, Katrin
2018. A unifying approach to impersonality in Russian.
Zeitschrift für Slawistik 63:1 ► pp. 120 ff.
Shibasaki, Reijirou
2014.
In Grammaticalization – Theory and Data [Studies in Language Companion Series, 162],
► pp. 129 ff.
Van linden, An
2020. Constructional effects of indirect evidential marking in Harakmbut.
Functions of Language 27:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Vasilescu, Andra
2021.
In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2017 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 355],
► pp. 358 ff.
Viti, Carlotta
2017. Semantic and cognitive factors of argument marking in ancient Indo-European languages.
Diachronica 34:3 ► pp. 368 ff.
Wang, Yong
2016. Impersonal clauses in Chinese.
Functions of Language 23:3 ► pp. 361 ff.
Zúñiga, Fernando & Seppo Kittilä
2019.
In Grammatical Voice,
Šereikaitė, Milena
2022. Impersonals, passives, and impersonal pronouns: Lessons from Lithuanian.
Syntax 25:2 ► pp. 188 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 july 2022. 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 & Metadata
BIC Subject: CFK – Grammar, syntax
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General