New Book: The Role of Semantic, Pragmatic, and Discourse Factors in the Development of Case

[J óhanna Barðdal]

Title: The Role of Semantic, Pragmatic, and Discourse Factors in the
Development of Case
Series Title: Studies in Language Companion Series 108

Publication Year: 2009
Publisher: John Benjamins
Book URL: http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=SLCS%20108

Editors: Jóhanna Barðdal (University of Bergen) and Shobhana L.
Chelliah (University of North Texas)

Blurb: The aim of this volume is to bring non-syntactic factors in the
development of case into the eye of the research field, by
illustrating the integral role of pragmatics, semantics, and discourse
structure in the historical development of morphologically marked case
systems. The articles represent fifteen typologically diverse
languages from four different language families: (i) Indo-European:
Vedic Sanskrit, Russian, Greek, Latin, Latvian, Gothic, French,
German, Icelandic, and Faroese; (ii) Tibeto-Burman, especially the
Bodic languages and Meithei; (iii) Japanese; and (iv) the Pama-Nyungan
mixed language Gurindji Kriol. The data also show considerable
diversity and include elicited, archival, corpus-based, and naturally
occurring data. Discussions of mechanisms where change is obtained
include semantically and aspectually motivated synchronic case
variation, discourse motivated subject marking, reduction or expansion
of case marker distribution, case syncretism motivated by semantics,
syntax, or language contact, and case splits motivated by pragmatics,
metonymy, and subjectification.

Hardback: ISBN:  978 90 272 0575 9 / EUR 105.00 / USD 158.00

Linguistic Field(s):
   Cognitive Linguistics
   Discourse studies
   Historical linguistics
   Morphology
   Pragmatics
   Semantics
   Syntax
   Theoretical linguistics
   Typology

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Jóhanna Barðdal
Research Associate Professor
Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies
University of Bergen
P.O. box 7805
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway
johanna.barddal at uib.no

Phone +47-55582438 (work)
Phone +47-55201117 (home)
Fax   +47-55589660 (work)