34.399, Books: The Negative Existential Cycle: Veselinova, Hamari (eds.)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-399. Wed Feb 01 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.399, Books: The Negative Existential Cycle: Veselinova, Hamari (eds.)

Moderators:

Editor for this issue: Maria Lucero Guillen Puon <luceroguillen at linguistlist.org>
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Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2023 01:26:08
From: Sebastian Nordhoff [sebastian.nordhoff at langsci-press.org]
Subject: The Negative Existential Cycle: Veselinova, Hamari (eds.)

 


Title: The Negative Existential Cycle 
Series Title: Research on Comparative Grammar  

Publication Year: 2022 
Publisher: Language Science Press
	   http://langsci-press.org
	

Book URL: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/307 


Editor: Ljuba Veselinova
Editor: Arja Hamari

Electronic: ISBN:  978396110339 Pages: 660 Price: Europe EURO 0 Comment: Open Access


Abstract:

In 1991, William Croft suggested that negative existentials (typically lexical
expressions that mean ‘not exist, not have’) are one possible source for
negation markers and gave his hypothesis the name Negative Existential Cycle
(NEC). It is a variationist model based on cross-linguistic data. For a good
twenty years following its formulation, it was cited at face-value without
ever having been tested by (historical)-comparative data. Over the last
decade, Ljuba Veselinova has worked on testing the model in a comparative
perspective, and this edited volume further expands on her work.

The collection presented here features detailed studies of several language
families such as Bantu, Chadic and Indo-European. A number of articles focus
on the micro-variation and attested historical developments within smaller
groups and clusters such as Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, and Nanaic.
Finally, variation and historical developments in specific languages are
discussed for Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Moksha-Mordvin (Uralic),
Bashkir (Turkic), Kalmyk (Mongolic), three Pama-Nyungan languages, O’dam
(Southern Uto-Aztecan) and Tacana (Takanan, Amazonian Bolivia). The book is
concluded by two chapters devoted to modeling cyclical processes in language
change from different theoretical perspectives.

Key notions discussed throughout the book include affirmative and negative
existential constructions, the expansion of the latter into verbal negation,
and subsequently from more specific to more general markers of negation.
Nominalizations as well as the uses of negative existentials as standalone
negative answers figure among the most frequent pathways whereby negative
existentials evolve as general negation markers. The operation of the Negative
Existential Cycle appears partly genealogically conditioned, as the cycle is
found to iterate regularly within some families but never starts in others, as
is the case in Bantu. In addition, other special negation markers such as
nominal negators are found to undergo similar processes, i.e. they expand into
the verbal domain and thereby develop into more general negation markers.

The book provides rich information on a specific path of the evolution of
negation, on cyclical processes in language change, and it show-cases the
historical-comparative method in a modern setting.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics
                     Lexicography
                     Typology

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=167993




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