Demonstratives: Form, function and grammaticalization - Couverture souple

Diessel, Holger

 
9789027229434: Demonstratives: Form, function and grammaticalization
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 9027229430 ISBN 13 : 9789027229434
Editeur : John Benjamins Publishing Co, 1999

Synopsis

All languages have demonstratives, but their form, meaning and use vary tremendously across the languages of the world. This book presents the first large-scale analysis of demonstratives from a cross-linguistic and diachronic perspective. It is based on a representative sample of 85 languages. The first part of the book analyzes demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, examining their morphological structures, semantic features, syntactic functions, and pragmatic uses in spoken and written discourse. The second part concentrates on diachronic issues, in particular on the development of demonstratives into grammatical markers. Across languages demonstratives provide a frequent historical source for definite articles, relative and third person pronouns, nonverbal copulas, sentence connectives, directional preverbs, focus markers, expletives, and many other grammatical markers. The book describes the different mechanisms by which demonstratives grammaticalize and argues that the evolution of grammatical markers from demonstratives is crucially distinct from other cases of grammaticalization.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Présentation de l'éditeur

All languages have demonstratives, but their form, meaning and use vary tremendously across the languages of the world. This book presents the first large-scale analysis of demonstratives from a cross-linguistic and diachronic perspective. It is based on a representative sample of 85 languages. The first part of the book analyzes demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, examining their morphological structures, semantic features, syntactic functions, and pragmatic uses in spoken and written discourse. The second part concentrates on diachronic issues, in particular on the development of demonstratives into grammatical markers. Across languages demonstratives provide a frequent historical source for definite articles, relative and third person pronouns, nonverbal copulas, sentence connectives, directional preverbs, focus markers, expletives, and many other grammatical markers. The book describes the different mechanisms by which demonstratives grammaticalize and argues that the evolution of grammatical markers from demonstratives is crucially distinct from other cases of grammaticalization.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
John Benjamins Publishing Co
Date d'édition
1999
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
9027229430
ISBN 13 
9789027229434
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
217
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9781556196577: Demonstratives: Form, Function, and Grammaticalization

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  1556196571 ISBN 13 :  9781556196577
Editeur : John Benjamins Pub Co, 1999
Couverture souple