Grammatical categories : variation in romance languages / M. Rita Manzini, Leonardo Maria Savoia.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Manzini, Maria Rita, author.

Savoia, Leonardo Maria, 1948- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; 128.

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; 128

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Grammatical categories.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Language and languages--Variation.

Language and languages.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 351 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Grammatical categories (e.g. complementizer, negation, auxiliary, case) are some of the most important building blocks of syntax and morphology. Categorization therefore poses fundamental questions about grammatical structures and about the lexicon from which they are built. Adopting a 'lexicalist' stance, the authors argue that lexical items are not epiphenomena, but really represent the mapping of sound to meaning (and vice versa) that classical conceptions imply. Their rule-governed combination creates words, phrases and sentences - structured by the 'categories' that are the object of the present inquiry. They argue that the distinction between functional and non-functional categories, between content words and inflections, is not as deeply rooted in grammar as is often thought. In their argumentation they lay the emphasis on empirical evidence, drawn mainly from dialectal variation in the Romance languages, as well as from Albanian.

Contents:

Introduction: grammatical categories and the biolinguistic perspective

The structure and interpretation of (Romance) complementizers

Variation in Romance k-complementizer systems

Sentential negation: adverbs

Sentential negation: clitics

The middle-passive voice: evidence from Albanian

The auxiliary: have/be alternations in the perfect

The noun (phrase): agreement, case and definiteness in an Albanian variety

(Definite) denotation and case in Romance: history and variation.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-21735-0

1-139-06293-X

1-283-11223-X

9786613112231

1-139-07513-6

1-139-07739-2

1-139-07968-9

1-139-06936-5

0-511-97448-5

1-139-08195-0

OCLC:

726734753