Contrastive Studies in Morphology and Syntax

Description

Using different theoretical approaches and frameworks, this book addresses a broad range of themes in contrastive linguistics, including inflection, derivation and compounding, tense, wh-questions, post-verbal subjects, focus, and clitics, among others. Looking at English, German, Spanish, Slavic languages and South Pacific languages, the book highlights the significance of the contrastive perspective for language-specific description and general interface issues, casting light on contrasts between languages at the levels of morphology and syntax. Each chapter compares two or more languages and makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of language typology and language universals. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Contributors Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: Theoretical issues in contrastive linguistics Chapter 1: Heuristic dimensions of contrastive linguistics 1 Introduction 2 Heuristic levels 3 Conclusion Chapter 2: English as a bridge: An L3-approach to contrastive linguistics 1 Introduction 2 The typological turn 3 English as a bridge language 4 Conclusion Chapter 3: ‘Verb-first’ in proverbs and slogans: A German-based contrastive view 1 Introduction 2 The V1-conditional as a paremiological template 3 Comparison with English 4 Constructional specification 5 Modifications 6 Association with proverbiality 7 Conclusions and directions for future research Abbreviations References Part 2: Morphology Chapter 4: Gender marking in English and Polish job titles: Referring to female physicians 1 Introduction 2 Notional versus grammatical gender; avoidance and non-avoidance of sexist language 3 Suffixal female names of physicians in English and Polish 4 NN combinations with gender-specific words 5 Double gender marking in Polish and mixed forms 6 Conclusions Notes Corpora Dictionaries Chapter 5: Congruence and equivalence in adjective-forming suffixation in Spanish and English: A contrastive study 1 Introduction 2 Methodology 3 Models of adjective-forming suffixes in English 4 Models of adjective-forming suffixes in Spanish 5 Contrastive Analysis 6 Conclusions Chapter 6: Linking elements in German compounds: A morphological analysis in comparison with Greek 1 Introduction 2 Linking elements in German and Greek nominal compounds 3 Function of the linking element 4 Synopsis and conclusions Chapter 7: Compounding in Albanian as a case of ‘structural blending’: Evidence from the contrastive analysis of Greek and Albanian 1 Aim of the chapter1 2 Methodology 3 Parameters of proximity and differentiation 4 Albanian versus Greek compounding: how similar or how different? 5 Language contact? 6 Conclusions Chapter 8: Past tense usages in tense-rich and tenseless languages: A contrastive study 1 Introduction 2 General remarks on the past tense 3 Data: A contrastive study 4 Discussion 5 Conclusion Acknowledgements Part 3: Syntax Chapter 9: A contrastive analysis of interrogative constructions in Romance: Microvariation and theory 1 Introduction: Interrogative clauses, stable and variable properties 2 Wh-questions in Romance 3 Wh-structures ambiguity: Free relatives 4 Some conclusions on the importance of micro-contrastive analysis Chapter 10: Wh-questions at the syntax-discourse interface: German–Swedish contrasts 1 Introduction 2 Definition of questions 3 Focus in questions 4 Focus and its complementary notion in questions 5 The categorization of wh-questions 6 Different types of wh-questions – from a contrastive perspective 7 Language-specific differences – empirical evidence 8 Conclusion Chapter 11: Focus types: A crosslinguistic study of clause and information structure 1 Introduction 2 Information structure – focus: Types and mechanisms of its realization 3 Characteristics of the languages under investigation 4 Mechanisms of realization of information and contrastive focus in English, German, Spanish, Italian and Greek 5 Comparative remarks 6 Conclusion Chapter 12: Strong pronouns as postverbal subjects in Spanish and Italian 1 Preliminaries 2 Three sets of data 3 Strong pronouns and information-structure articulation 4 Conclusions Chapter 13: Cliticization patterns in Greek: A comparative examination with crosslinguistic remarks 1 Introduction 2 The non-2P system 3 The 2P system 4 Relating the two systems: The proposed analysis 5 Prosodic reanalysis and the transition from 2P to non-2P 6 Conclusions Notes Abbreviations Sources References Chapter 14: Towards a formal model of transfer under contact: Contrasting Asia Minor Greek to mainland Greek and Turkish in search of syntactic borrowings 1 Introduction 2 A contrastive analysis of multiple wh-questions 3 N-finality in Asia Minor 4 Towards a model of syntactic borrowing: some foundational principles and conclusions Notes Abbreviations Chapter 15: Goal prevalence and situation types: An empirical analysis of differences in Greek and German motion event descriptions 1 Introduction 2 Goal prominence and the lexicalization pattern 3 The empirical study: The old design 4 The empirical study: A new analysis 4.1 Results 5 Conclusions Acknowledgements Index of subjects Index of languages