Particle verbs (combinations of two words but lexical units) are a notorious problem in linguistics. Is a particle verb like look up one word or two? It has its own entry in dictionaries, as if it is ...one word, but look and up can be split up in a sentence: we can say He looked the information up and He looked up the information. But why can't we say He looked up it? In English look and up can only be separated by a direct object, but in Dutch the two parts can be separated over a much longer distance. How did such hybrid verbs arise and how do they function? How can we make sense of them in modern theories of language structure? This book sets out to answer these and other questions, explaining how these verbs fit into the grammatical systems of English and Dutch.
In Argument structure in Kashmiri Saartje Verbeke studies the patterns of grammatical relations in the Indo-Aryan language Kashmiri, including case marking and verb agreement, from a typological ...point of view.
This book is the most comprehensive study to date of the development of the three suffixes -hood, -dom and -ship in the history of English. Based on data from annotated corpora it provides an in ...depth investigation from Old English to Modern English and shows that structurally the three suffixes developed from syntactic heads (nouns) via morphological heads in compounds to morphological heads in derivations. Being an instance of morphologisation the rise of suffixes clearly shows that word formation is not part of the syntactic module. This development is triggered by semantic change, more precisely, by the semantics of the elements which keep their salient meanings and develop further meanings through metonymic shifts, finally leading to underspecified meanings. The findings are analysed in a revised version of Lieber`s (2004) framework to account for the diachronic facts and have far-reaching consequences for morphological theory since they show that derivational suffixes bear meaning and hence contribute to processes of lexicalisation which is clear evidence for sign-based models and against, for example, Separationist assumptions.
This series consists of collected volumes and monographs about specific issues dealing with interfaces among the subcomponents of linguistic structure: phonology-morphology, phonology-syntax, ...syntax-semantics, syntax-morphology, and syntax-lexicon. Recent linguistic research has recognized that the subcomponents of grammar interact in non-trivial ways. What is currently under debate is the actual range of such interactions and their most appropriate representation in grammar, and this is precisely the focus of this series. Specifically, it provides a general overview of various topics by examining them through the interaction of grammatical components. The books function as a state-of- the-art report of research.
The book series Linguistische Arbeiten (LA) publishes high-quality work in linguistics that addresses current issues in synchrony and diachrony, theoretically or empirically oriented.
The Semantics of German Verb Prefixes is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken in this area of German grammar. Using an extensive collection of naturally occurring data, the author proposes an ...image-schematic interpretation for each of the productive prefixes be-, ver-, er-, ent-, zer-, um-, über-, unter-, and durch-. These abstract semantic patterns underlie a remarkable range of particular meanings, and they consistently account for subtle contrasts between prefixed verbs and alternative constructions such as simple verbs, particle verbs, and verbs with other prefixes. Furthermore, the author develops a schematic meaning for the prefixed verb construction itself. This grammatical meaning reflects the interpreter's perspective and attentional focus as the objective event is imagined to unfold. Underlying all of these proposals is a novel conception of meaning as a dynamic and flexible process with a constantly active role for the interpreter. This volume will be of great value to cognitive linguists as well as scholars and students of German who want to gain insights into a central and puzzling part of the morphosyntax and semantics of the German language.
