The Unaccusativity Puzzle

The phenomenon of unaccusativity is a central focus for the study of the complex properties of verb classes. This book combines contemporary approaches to the subject with several papers that have achieved a significant status even though formally unpublished.

Sumerian, probably the earliest attested language in human history, has no known cognates. Accordingly, many features of Sumerian grammar are still under discussion. Up to now research has focused primarily on questions of Sumerian phonology and morphology. In this present study the author concentrates on syntactic or pragmatic phenomena, especially on the referential properties of the nominal component of certain so-called compound verbs, the unaccusativity contrast, and the possibility of generic quantification in the double object construction.

The alternation between the auxiliaries BE and HAVE, which this collection examines, is often discussed in connection with generative analyses of split intransitivity. But this book's purpose is to place the phenomenon in a broader context. Well-known facts in the Romance and Germanic language families are extended with data from lesser studied languages and dialects (Romanian, Paduan), and also with experimental and historical data. Moreover, the book goes beyond the usual language families in which the phenomenon has been studied, with the inclusion of two chapters on Chinese and Korean. The theoretical background of the contributors is also broad, ranging from current Generative approaches to Cognitive and Optimality-Theoretical frameworks. Readers interested in the structural, historical, developmental, or experimental aspects of auxiliary selection should profit from this book's comprehensive empirical coverage and from the plurality of contemporary linguistic analyses it contains.

The author questions the status quo in Romance linguistics. The Ergative/Unaccusative syntactic approach has been accepted as the orthodox analytical paradigm. He re-examines both the theoretical imperative and the empirical evidence for that approach, drawing on a large amount of new and surprising data from Italian, Spanish, French and Catalan.

Since entering the stage, Davidsonian event arguments have taken on a central role in linguistic theorizing. Recent years have seen a continuous extension of possible applications for them, not only in semantics but also in syntax. At the same time questions concerning the ontological status of events have received renewed attention. This collection of articles provides new evidence for the virtually ubiquitous presence of event arguments in linguistic structure and sheds new light on their nature. The volume is organized into four sections: Events - states - causation; Event nominals; Events in composition; Measuring events.

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

Although in the early days of generative linguistics Slovenian was rarely called on in the development of theoretical models, the attention it gets has subsequently grown, so that by now it has contributed to generative linguistics a fair share of theoretically important data. With 13 chapters that all build on Slovenian data, this book sets a new milestone. The topics discussed in the volume range from Slovenian clitics, which are called on to shed new light on the intriguing Person-Case Constraint and to provide part of the evidence for a new generalization relating the presence of the definite article and Wackernagel clitics, to functional elements such as the future auxiliary and possibility modals, the latter of which are discussed also from the perspective of language change. Even within the relatively well-researched topics like wh-movement, new findings are presented, both in relation to the structure of the left periphery and to the syntax of relative clauses.

This handbook provides innovative and comprehensive coverage of research on the second language acquisition (SLA) of morphosyntax, semantics, and the interface between the two. Organized by grammatical topic, the chapters are written by experts from formal and functional perspectives in the SLA of morphosyntax and semantics, providing in-depth yet accessible coverage of these areas. All chapters highlight the theoretical underpinnings of much work in SLA and their links to theoretical syntax and semantics; making comparisons to other populations, including child language acquirers, bilinguals, and heritage speakers (links to first language acquisition and bilingualism); dedicating a portion of each chapter to the research methods used to investigate the linguistic phenomenon in question (links to psycholinguistics and experimental linguistics); and, where relevant, including intervention studies on the phenomenon in question (links to applied linguistics). The volume will be indispensable to SLA researchers and students who work on any aspect of the SLA of morphosyntax or semantics. With its coverage of a variety of methodologies and comparisons to other populations (such as child language acquirers, early bilinguals, heritage speakers, and monolingual adults), the handbook is expected to also be of much interest to linguists who work in psycholinguistics, first language acquisition, and bilingualism.