18.3841, Books: Morphology/Syntax/Ling Theories: Mladenova

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LINGUIST List: Vol-18-3841. Thu Dec 20 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 18.3841, Books: Morphology/Syntax/Ling Theories: Mladenova

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1)
Date: 17-Dec-2007
From: Julia Ulrich < julia.ulrich at degruyter.com >
Subject: Definiteness in Bulgarian: Mladenova

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:06:34
From: Julia Ulrich [julia.ulrich at degruyter.com]
Subject: Definiteness in Bulgarian: Mladenova
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Title: Definiteness in Bulgarian 
Subtitle: Mofrling the Process of Language Change 
Series Title: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 168  

Publication Year: 2007 
Publisher: Mouton de Gruyter
	   http://www.mouton-publishers.com
	

Book URL: http://www.degruyter.de/cont/fb/sp/detailEn.cfm?id=IS-9783110195576-1 


Author: Olga M. Mladenova

Hardback: ISBN:  9783110195576 Pages: 472 Price: Europe EURO 128.00
Hardback: ISBN:  9783110195576 Pages: 472 Price: U.S. $ 179.00 Comment: for orders placed in North America


Abstract:

In its evolution from a synthetic to an analytic language, Bulgarian
acquired a grammaticalized category of definiteness. The book presents the
first attempt to explore in detail how this happened by comparing the
earliest Modern Bulgarian texts with contemporary dialect and standard
Bulgarian data. The basic units of analysis are the various types of
nominal structures headed by nouns or pronouns. The analysis requires the
strict terminological disentanglement of form from content and the adoption
of a default inheritance model of definiteness that allow the exhaustive
classification and tagging of nominal structures encountered in the texts.
Tagging makes it possible to apply quantitative analysis to nominal
structure and to assess the types available in the early texts from a
current native-speaker perspective. 

Based on an S-curve model of language change, the study establishes that
overt markers of definiteness were first made available to
identifiability-based definites, then to inclusiveness-based definites,
quantitative generics and unique referents. The overt markers of
indefiniteness followed suit, separating indefinites from non-specifics and
typifying generics. This progression of definiteness was directed by
variables such as person, animacy, gender, number and noun-class, and
started in contexts in which definiteness closely interacted with
possessivity. Such an analysis leads to the realization that the
two-dimensional S-curve model does not account for all language change and
that there is a need for a three-dimensional model. It also demonstrates
that, contrary to previous assumptions, there is continuity between the
early Slavic marker of definiteness (long-form adjectives) and the Modern
Bulgarian article. This discovery, in conjunction with geolinguistic
arguments, sheds new light on the role that relations inside the Balkan
Sprachbund played in the grammaticalization of Bulgarian definiteness. 



Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Linguistic Theories
                     Morphology
                     Syntax

Subject Language(s): Bulgarian (bul)


Written In: English  (eng)
	
See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=33066


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