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Syntactic Change In Akkadian
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Book Synopsis Syntactic Change in Akkadian by : Guy Deutscher
Download or read book Syntactic Change in Akkadian written by Guy Deutscher and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2000 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Akkadian, an ancient Semitic language spoken in Assyria and Babylonia, is one of the earliest known languages, with a surviving written history from 2500BC to 500BC. Guy Deutscher investigates its development over these two millennia. He shows that changes in the language can be linked to the emergence of complex patterns of communication required by an increasingly sophisticated civilization.
Book Synopsis Syntactic Change in Akkadian by : Guy Deutscher
Download or read book Syntactic Change in Akkadian written by Guy Deutscher and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Akkadian is one of the earliest attested languages and the oldest recorded Semitic language. It exists in written record between 2500BC and 500BC, much of it in letters and reports concerned with domestic and business matters, and written in colloquial language. It provides a unique and valuable source for the study of linguistic change but which, perhaps because of the impenetrability of its writing system, has rarely been exploited by linguists. In this book, Guy Deutscher examines the historical development of subordinate structures in Akkadian. A case study comprises the first two parts of the book, presenting an historical grammar of sentential complementation. Part I traces the emergence of new structures and describes how the finite complements first emerged in Babylonian. It also explains the grammaticalization of the quotative construction. Part II is a functional history which examines the changes in the functional roles of different structures. It shows how, during the history of the language, finite complements and embedded questions became more widespread, whereas other structures (e.g. infinite complements, parataxis, etc.) receded. Part III seeks to explain the historical developments in a theoretical light, showing how the development in Akkadian is mirrored in many other languages. It goes on to suggest that the emergence of finite complementation may be seen as 'adaptive' and related to the development of more complex communication patterns. This book will be of interest to both specialists and general linguists alike. For specialists it offers a contribution towards a badly-needed historical grammar of the Akkadian language. For general linguists this book will be of interest not only for the questions which it raises about the nature of complementation, but also for the window which it provides on to this little-known language.
Book Synopsis Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew by : Robert Rezetko
Download or read book Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew written by Robert Rezetko and published by Society of Biblical Lit. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" html meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type" body A philologically robust approach to the history of ancient Hebrew In this book the authors work toward constructing an approach to the history of ancient Hebrew that overcomes the chasm of academic specialization. The authors illustrate how cross-textual variable analysis and variation analysis advance research on Biblical Hebrew and correct theories based on extra-linguistic assumptions, intuitions, and ideologies by focusing on variation of forms/uses in the Masoretic text and variation between the Masoretic text and other textual traditions. Features: A unique approach that examines the nature of the sources and the description of their language together Extensive bibliography for further research Tables of linguistic variables and parallels
Book Synopsis Variation, Contact, and Reconstruction in the Ancient Indo-European Languages by :
Download or read book Variation, Contact, and Reconstruction in the Ancient Indo-European Languages written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-05-20 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reflects the vibrancy of historical linguistics, showing how research on ancient Indo-European languages contributes to the understanding of the principles and patterns of language organization and change, including studies on typologically natural tendencies and cognitive universals.
Book Synopsis The Akkadian Verb and Its Semitic Background by : N. J. C. Kouwenberg
Download or read book The Akkadian Verb and Its Semitic Background written by N. J. C. Kouwenberg and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-06-23 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magnum opus, N. J. C. Kouwenberg presents a thoroughgoing, modern analysis of the Akkadian verbal system, taking into account all of the currently available evidence for the language during the course of the long period of its attestation. The book achieves this goal through two strategies: (1) to describe the Akkadian verbal system, as comprehensively as the data permit; and (2) to reconstruct its prehistory on the basis of internal evidence and reconstruction, comparison with cognate languages, and typological evidence. Akkadian has one of the longest documented histories of any language: data from nearly two-and-one-half millennia are available, even if the stream of data is sometimes interrupted and not always as copious as we would like. During the course of this history, numerous developments took place, illustrating how languages change over time and offering parallels for reconstruction of changes that occurred in poorly documented periods. As a result, this book will be of great interest, in the first place, for all students of Akkadian, both the language and the literature that is documented in that language; and in the second place, for all students of language and linguistics who are interested in the study of how languages are shaped, develop, and change during the course of a long history.
Download or read book Language Change written by Anna Mauranen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through integrating different perspectives on language change, this book explores the enormous on-going linguistic upheavals in the wake of the global dominance of English. Combining empirical research with theoretical approaches, it will appeal to researchers and graduate students of English, and also of other languages studying language change.
Book Synopsis Syntactic Complexity by : Talmy Givón
Download or read book Syntactic Complexity written by Talmy Givón and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex hierarchic syntax is considered one of the hallmarks of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the apex of the uniquely-human language faculty evolutionary but somehow immune to adaptive selection. This volume, coming out of a symposium held at Rice University in March 2008, tackles syntactic complexity from multiple developmental perspectives. We take it for granted that grammar is an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic cognition. Most of the papers in the volume deal with the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for the acquisition of competent grammatical performance. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is considered alongside with the cognition and neurology of grammar and of syntactic complexity, and the evolutionary relevance of diachrony, ontogeny and pidginization is argued on general bio-evolutionary grounds. Lastly, several of the contributions to the volume suggest that recursive embedding is not in itself an adaptive target, but rather the by-product of two distinct adaptive gambits: the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on other clauses and the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.
Book Synopsis Language Change, Variation, and Universals by : Peter W. Culicover
Download or read book Language Change, Variation, and Universals written by Peter W. Culicover and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how human languages become what they are, why they differ from one another in certain ways but not in others, and why they change in the ways that they do. Given that language is a universal creation of the human mind, the puzzle is why there are different languages at all: why do we not all speak the same language? Moreover, while there is considerable variation, in some ways grammars do show consistent patterns: why are languages similar in those respects, and why are those particular patterns preferred? Peter Culicover proposes that the solution to these puzzles is a constructional one. Grammars consist of constructions that carry out the function of expressing universal conceptual structure. While there are in principle many different ways of accomplishing this task, languages are under press to reduce constructional complexity. The result is that there is constructional change in the direction of less complexity, and grammatical patterns emerge that more efficiently reflect conceptual universals. The volume is divided into three parts: the first establishes the theoretical foundations; the second explores variation in argument structure, grammatical functions, and A-bar constructions, drawing on data from a variety of languages including English and Plains Cree; and the third examines constructional change, focusing primarily on Germanic. The study ends with observations and speculations on parameter theory, analogy, the origins of typological patterns, and Greenbergian 'universals'.
Book Synopsis Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English by : Simone E. Pfenninger
Download or read book Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English written by Simone E. Pfenninger and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this volume aim at facilitating exchange between three fields of inquiry that are of great importance in historical linguistics: language change, (socio)linguistic research on variation, and contact linguistics. Drawing on a range of recently-developed methodological innovations, such as methods for quantifying the linguistic variation (that is a prerequisite for language change) or new corpus-based methods for investigating text-type variation, the contributors are able to trace linguistic change in different periods and contact situations, demonstrate how variation occurs, and in how far language change results out of this variation. Thus, the chapters go beyond core issues of language variation and change, focusing on the boundary between word and grammar, discourse and ideology in the history of the English language.
Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics by :
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2005-11-24 with total page 26924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first edition of ELL (1993, Ron Asher, Editor) was hailed as "the field's standard reference work for a generation". Now the all-new second edition matches ELL's comprehensiveness and high quality, expanded for a new generation, while being the first encyclopedia to really exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics. * The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field * An entirely new work, with new editors, new authors, new topics and newly commissioned articles with a handful of classic articles * The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics through the online edition * Ground-breaking and International in scope and approach * Alphabetically arranged with extensive cross-referencing * Available in print and online, priced separately. The online version will include updates as subjects develop ELL2 includes: * c. 7,500,000 words * c. 11,000 pages * c. 3,000 articles * c. 1,500 figures: 130 halftones and 150 colour * Supplementary audio, video and text files online * c. 3,500 glossary definitions * c. 39,000 references * Extensive list of commonly used abbreviations * List of languages of the world (including information on no. of speakers, language family, etc.) * Approximately 700 biographical entries (now includes contemporary linguists) * 200 language maps in print and online Also available online via ScienceDirect – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy. For more information, pricing options and availability visit www.info.sciencedirect.com. The first Encyclopedia to exploit the multimedia potential of linguistics Ground-breaking in scope - wider than any predecessor An invaluable resource for researchers, academics, students and professionals in the fields of: linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, language acquisition, language pathology, cognitive science, sociology, the law, the media, medicine & computer science. The most authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive, and international reference source in its field
Book Synopsis Relative Clauses in Time and Space by : Rachel Hendery
Download or read book Relative Clauses in Time and Space written by Rachel Hendery and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a comprehensive survey of historically attested relative clause constructions from a diachronic typological perspective. This title demonstrates how typology and historical linguistics can each benefit from attention to the other.
Book Synopsis The Final-Over-Final Condition by : Michelle Sheehan
Download or read book The Final-Over-Final Condition written by Michelle Sheehan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the evidence for and the theoretical implications of a universal word order constraint, with data from a wide range of languages. This book presents evidence for a universal word order constraint, the Final-over-Final Condition (FOFC), and discusses the theoretical implications of this phenomenon. FOFC is a syntactic condition that disallows structures where a head-initial phrase is contained in a head-final phrase in the same extended projection/domain. The authors argue that FOFC is a linguistic universal, not just a strong tendency, and not a constraint on processing. They discuss the effects of the universal in various domains, including the noun phrase, the adjective phrase, the verb phrase, and the clause. The book draws on data from a wide range of languages, including Hindi, Turkish, Basque, Finnish, Afrikaans, German, Hungarian, French, English, Italian, Romanian, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Pontic Greek, Bagirmi, Dholuo, and Thai. FOFC, the authors argue, is important because it is the only known example of a word order asymmetry pertaining to the order of heads. As such, it has significant repercussions for theories connecting the narrow syntax to linear order.
Book Synopsis Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization by : Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Download or read book Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization written by Elizabeth Closs Traugott and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-24 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, which emerged from a workshop at the New Reflections on Grammaticalization 4 conference held at KU Leuven in July 2008, contains a collection of papers which investigate the relationship between synchronic gradience and the apparent gradualness of linguistic change, largely from the perspective of grammaticalization. In addition to versions of the papers presented at the workshop, the volume contains specially commissioned contributions, some of which offer commentaries on a subset of the other articles. The articles address a number of themes central to grammaticalization studies, such as the role of reanalysis and analogy in grammaticalization, the formal modelling of grammaticalization, and the relationship between formal and functional change, using data from a range of languages, and (in some cases) from particular electronic corpora. The volume will be of specific interest to historical linguists working on grammaticalization, and general linguists working on the interface between synchrony and diachrony.
Book Synopsis The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity by : T. Givón
Download or read book The Genesis of Syntactic Complexity written by T. Givón and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex hierarchic syntax is a hallmark of human language. The highest level of syntactic complexity, recursive-embedded clauses, has been singled out by some for a special status as the evolutionary apex of the uniquely - human language faculty - evolutionary yet mysteriously immune to Darwinian adaptive selection. Prof. Givón's book treats syntactic complexity as an integral part of the evolutionary rise of human communication. The book first describes grammar as an adaptive instrument of communication, assembled upon the pre-existing platform of pre-linguistic object- and-event cognition and mental representation. It then surveys the two grand developmental trends of human language: diachrony, the communal enterprise directly responsible for fashioning synchronic morpho-syntax and cross-language diversity; and ontogeny, the individual endeavor directly responsible for acquiring the competent use of grammar. The genesis of syntactic complexity along these two developmental trends is compared with second language acquisition, pre-grammatical pidgin and pre-human communication. The evolutionary relevance of language diachrony, language ontogeny and pidginization is argued for on general bio-evolutionary grounds: It is the organism's adaptive on-line behavior- invention, learning and skill acquisition - that is the common thread running through all three developmental trends. The neuro-cognitive circuits that underlie language, and their evolutionary underpinnings, are described and assessed. Recursive embedding turns out to be not an adaptive target on its own, but the by-product of two distinct adaptive moves: (i) the recruitment of conjoined clauses as modal operators on, or referential specifiers of, other clauses; and (ii) the subsequent condensation of paratactic into syntactic structures.
Book Synopsis A Grammar of Old Assyrian by : N.J.C. Kouwenberg
Download or read book A Grammar of Old Assyrian written by N.J.C. Kouwenberg and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-05-09 with total page 947 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Grammar of Old Assyrian is a grammar of the earliest stage of Assyrian (1900-1700 BC), a Semitic language that is one of the main varieties of Akkadian, and describes the language of a community of Assyrian merchants living in Anatolia.
Book Synopsis Sociolinguistic and Typological Perspectives on Language Variation by : Silvia Ballarè
Download or read book Sociolinguistic and Typological Perspectives on Language Variation written by Silvia Ballarè and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-10-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguistic variation, loosely defined as the wholesale processes whereby patterns of language structures exhibit divergent distributions within and across languages, has traditionally been the object of research of at least two branches of linguistics: variationist sociolinguistics and linguistic typology. In spite of their similar research agendas, the two approaches have only rarely converged in the description and interpretation of variation. While a number of studies attempting to address at least aspects of this relationship have appeared in recent years, a principled discussion on how the two disciplines may interact has not yet been carried out in a programmatic way. This volume aims to fill this gap and offers a cross-disciplinary venue for discussing the bridging between sociolinguistic and typological research from various angles, with the ultimate goal of laying out the methodological and conceptual foundations of an integrated research agenda for the study of linguistic variation.
Download or read book Sumerian Origins written by Norah Romney and published by DTTV PUBLICATIONS. This book was released on 2020-06-07 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Mysterious Group of People came to settle in southern Mesopotamia, sometime around 5400BC. What is now the modern state of Iraq, the first city of Mesopotamia was founded named Eridu. Although historians have generally regarded this as the world’s first city, we have seen this challenged on numerous occasions by recent discoveries too numerous to mention here. Eridu had all the things we ordinarily associate with an ancient city: temples, administrative buildings, housing, agriculture, markets, art, and, of course, walls to keep out unsavoury characters.The elusive aspect is we have absolutely no idea where they acquired their language, and bizarre language it is, we have no idea what they originally looked like. Their language, which we call Sumerian, and the subsequent Akkadian derivative were linguistic isolates. Sumerian is the oldest known written language on Earth, and any languages it might have derived from or developed alongside have been lost to time. Figuring out what their baffling ethnic identity based on their art is a doomed effort, because their art was so stylized that a good case could be made that it portrays people of any ethnicity, or the people they encountered. The Sumerian language was not Semitic, and the Akkadian conquests of 2334 BCE disrupted the ethnic and cultural isolation of the Sumerian people. By about 2000 BCE, the Sumerians were speaking Akkadian and the Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations were regarded as a single enterprise.Does this mean that we’ll never know how the Sumerian language developed, or where the Sumerians originally came from? Well if any reasonably well-preserved Sumerian bones can be found DNA testing could tell us their ethnic origin. Although this all sounds murky, we have literature left in the form if cuneiform writing that speaks volumes on their day to day life and their highly unusual gods. The Sumerian pantheon reads like wild science fiction at times and although they often speak of their own origins in terms of their gods and family ties many have chosen to label this as mythology, ignore it, or merely treat it in a literature aspect.
