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A Unified Theory of Polarity Sensitivity
Polarity sensitivity is a ubiquitous phenomenon involving expressions such as anybody, nobody, ever, never, somebody and their counterparts in other languages. These expressions belong to different classes such as negative and positive polarity, negative concord, and negative indefinites. In this book, Ahmad Alqassas proposes a unified approach to the study of this phenomenon that relies on examining the interaction between the various types of polarity sensitivity, with a particular focus on Arabic. Alqassas shows that treating this interaction is fundamental for scrutinizing their licensing conditions. Alqassas draws on data from Standard Arabic and the major regional dialects represented ...
Multi-locus Analysis of Arabic Negation
This book studies the micro-variation in the syntax of negation of Southern Levantine, Gulf and Standard Arabic. By including new and recently published data that support key issues for the syntax of negation, the book challenges the standard parametric view that negation has a fixed parametrized position in syntactic structure. It particularly argues for a multi-locus analysis with syntactic, semantic, morphosyntactic and diachronic implications for the various structural positions. Thus accounting for numerous word order restrictions, semantic ambiguities and pragmatic interpretations without complicating narrow syntax with special operations, configurations or constraints.
Perspectives on Negation
Although negation has been studied extensively by philosophers, linguists, and psychologists, it remains an active area of inquiry across the language sciences. This dynamic and cross-disciplinary volume contains a unique collection of chapters by language scientists from a variety of disciplines. Readers will explore novel connections and gain insights into the nature of negation, one of the few uncontroversial universal elements of natural language.
The Grammar of Multiple Head-Movement
In this book, Phil Branigan examines multiple head-movement, a very common morpho-syntactic phenomenon that forms a part of the grammar in Finnish, English, Perenakan Javanese, northern Norwegian and Swedish dialects, and generally in the Slavic and Algonquian language families. Basing his analysis on a new model of the grammatical parameters which control word formation in the human brain, Branigan identifies how careful attention to the contexts in which multiple head-movement takes place allows new generalizations to be identified. A new account of how complex words are formed, this study deepens our understanding of how languages vary and of the mental computational system of human grammars.
Arabic and the Case against Linearity in Historical Linguistics
This book explores the long history of the Arabic language, from pre-Islamic Arabic via the Classical era of the Arabic grammarians up to the present day. While most traditional accounts have been dominated by a linear understanding of the development of Arabic, this book instead advocates a multiple pathways approach to Arabic language history. Arabic has multifarious sources: its relations to other Semitic languages, an old epigraphic and papyrological tradition, a vibrant and linguistically original classical Arabic linguistic tradition, and a widely dispersed array of contemporary spoken varieties. These diverse sources present a challenge to and an opportunity for defining a holistic bu...
The Comparative Syntax of Korean and Japanese
This book provides a detailed survey of Korean and Japanese syntax from a comparative perspective, based within a generative framework. Yukata Sato and Sungdai Cho demonstrate that while the two languages exhibit remarkably similar morphosyntactic features, they behave differently in specific types of construction, with the main differences observed in genitive marking, sentence negation, Negative Polarity Items, the formation of causatives, and passivization. The book also explores pragmatic and sociolinguistic issues in the two languages, and shows that they differ in the perception and realization of 'givenness' as a topic marker and in the influence of relationships of power and distance on the use of honorifics. The authors further offer additional context by exploring the typological relationship between Japanese and Korean and the surrounding languages such as Ainu, and the Chinese and Altaic languages, as well as providing socio-cultural and historical background.
Rich Descriptions and Simple Explanations in Morphosyntax and Language Acquisition
This volume offers new perspectives on the tension between the rich patterns of language variation that emerge from comparative studies and the quest for simple theoretical primitives. The chapters explore the debate between Cartography and Minimalism: on the one hand, the need for detailed and articulated descriptions of the clausal architecture, and on the other, the endeavor to reduce the theoretical apparatus to fundamental computational mechanisms. The first part of the book begins with a reflection on the goals of modern linguistic theory, and investigates the principles of human language, in an effort to subsume the regularities of particular grammars under a small set of morphosyntac...
Syria's Democratic Years
This study of mid-20th century Syria blends “cultural theory and comparative history” to offer “intellectual depth and relevance beyond the case at hand” (The Middle East Journal). When Syria became fully independent in 1946, the young republic faced the task of forging a new national identity. From 1954 to 1958, Syria enjoyed a brief period of civilian government—popularly known as “The Democratic Years”—before the consolidation of authoritarian rule. In Syria’s Democratic Years, Kevin W. Martin provides a cultural history of the period and argues that the authoritarian outcome was anything but inevitable. Examining the flourishing broadcast and print media of the time, Martin focuses on three public figures, whose professions—law, the military, and medicine—projected modernity and modeled the new Arab citizen. This experiment with democracy, however abortive, offers a model of governance from Syria’s historical experience that could serve as an alternative to dictatorship.
Studies on Interrogative and Relative Syntax in French and Romance
This book provides a detailed study of the unusually large array of interrogative and relative grammars mastered by French speakers. Jean-Yves Pollock draws on the theoretical tools of generative grammar and compares the relevant French constructions with their counterparts in English, Italian, and Northern Italian dialects.
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVIII
This volume makes important contributions to the growing body of descriptive and theoretical studies in Arabic linguistics. It focuses on the rich linguistic work being done on Arabic dialects. The papers on individual dialects draw attention to the micro-variation that exists, emphasize that they do not comprise a uniform group, and reveal the implications of dialectal variation for linguistic theory. The chapters are distributed over three parts: phonetics and phonology, syntax, and sociolinguistics. They address first and second language acquisition, historical linguistics, phonetics, aspects of negation, light verb constructions, raising verbs, and sociolinguistic variation. The book is indispensable reading for those working in dialect description, the analysis of Arabic and the Semitic languages, and linguistic theory more generally.
