Describing Morphosyntax/Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
List of abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
0.1 The purpose of this book
0.2 Some terminology and recurring metaphors 4
0.3 Conclusion 11
1 Demographic and ethnographic information 13
1.1 The name of the language 13
1.2 Ethnology 14
1.3 Demography 14
1.4 Genetic affiliation 15
1.5 Previous research 15
1.6 The sociolinguistic situation 15
1.7 Dialects 18
2 Morphological typology 20
2.0 Historical background and definitions 20
2.1 Traditional morphological typology 27
2.2 Morphological processes 29
2.3 Head/dependent marking 31
3 Grammatical categories 12
3.1 Nouns 33
3.2 Verbs 47
3.3 Modifiers 63
3.4 Adverbs 69
4 Constituent order typology 71
4.0 Introduction 71
4.1 Constituent order in main clauses 76
4.2 Verb phrase 84
4.3 Noun phrase 86
4.4 Adpositional phrases (prepositions and postpositions) 86
4.5 Comparatives 88
4.6 Question particles and question words 89
4.7 Summary 90
5 Noun and noun-phrase operations 92
5.1 Compounding 92
5.2 Denominalization 94
5.3 Number 96
5.4 Case 100
5.5 Articles, determiners, and demonstratives 102
5.6 Possessors 104
5.7 Class (including gender) W7
5.8 Diminution/augmentation 109
6 Predicate nominals and related constructions 111
6.1 Predicate nominals 114
6.2 Predicate adjectives (attributive clauses) 120
6.3 Predicate locatives 121
6.4 Existentials 123
6.5 Possessive clauses 126
6.6 Summary of predicate nominal and EPL relationships 127
7 Grammatical relations 129
7.1 Systems for grouping S, A, and P 133
7.2 Functional explanations for groupings of S, A, and P 139
7.3 Split systems 144
7.4 "Syntactic" ergativity 162
7.5 Summary 166
8 Voice and valence adjusting operations 169
8.0 Valence and predicate calculus 174
8.1 Valence increasing operations 175
8.2 Valence decreasing operations 196
9 Other verb and verb-phrase operations 221
9.1 Nominalization 223
9.2 Compounding (including incorporation) 231
9.3 Tense/aspect/mode 233
9.4 Location/direction 248
9.5 Participant reference 250
9.6 Evidentiality, validationality, and mirativity 251
9.7 Miscellaneous 257
10 Pragmatically marked structures 261
10.0 Pragmatic statuses 261
10.1 The morphosyntax of focus, contrast, and "topicalization" 271
10.2 Negation 282
10.3 Non-declarative speech acts 294
11 Clause combinations 106
11.1 Serial verbs 307
11.2 Complement clauses 313
11.3 Adverbial clauses 316
11.4 Clause chaining, medial clauses, and switch reference 321
11.5 Relative clauses 325
11.6 Coordination 336
12 Conclusions: the language in use 342
12.0 Discourse analysis and linguistic analysis 342
12.1 Continuity (cohesion) and discontinuity 343
12.2 Genres 356
12.3 Miscellaneous and conclusions 362
Appendix 1 Elicited and text data 366
Appendix 2 Sample reference grammars 372
Notes 376
References 382
Index of languages, language families, and language areas 396
Subject index 402