Overview

Preferred Argument Structure offers a profound insight into the relationship between language use and grammatical structure. In his original publication on Preferred Argument Structure, Du Bois (1987) demonstrated the power of this perspective by using it to explain the origins of ergativity and ergative marking systems. Since this work, the general applicability of Preferred Argument Structure has been demonstrated in studies of language after language. In this collection, the authors move beyond verifying Preferred Argument Structure as a property of a given language. They use the methodology to reveal more subtle aspects of the patterns, for example, to look across languages, diachronically or synchronically, to examine particular grammatical relations, and to examine special populations or particular genres. This volume will appeal to linguists interested in the relationship of pragmatics and grammar generally, in the typology of grammatical relations, and in explanations derived from data- and corpus-based approaches to analysis.

Full Product Details

Author:   John W. Du Bois (University of California) ,  Lorraine E. Kumpf (California State University) ,  William J. Ashby (University of California) ,  John W. Du Bois
Publisher:   John Benjamins Publishing Co
Imprint:   John Benjamins Publishing Co
Volume:   14
Weight:   0.725kg
ISBN:  

9789027226242

ISBN 10:   9027226245
Pages:   458
Publication Date:   29 September 2003
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

1. Preface; 2. Abbreviations; 3. Introduction (by Du Bois, John W.); 4. Argument structure: Grammar in use (by Du Bois, John W.); 5. Preferred Argument Structure across time and space: A comparative diachronic analysis of French and Spanish (by Ashby, William J.); 6. The lexicon in interaction: Developmental origins of Preferred Argument Structure in Korean (by Clancy, Patricia M.); 7. Genre and Preferred Argument Structure: Sources of argument structure in classroom discourse (by Kumpf, Lorraine E.); 8. Issues in the comparative argument structure analysis in Mayan narratives (by England, Nora C.); 9. New light on information pressure: Information conduits, escape valves , and role alignment stretching (by Durie, Mark); 10. Beyond Preferred Argument Structure: Sentences, pronouns, and given referents in Nepali (by Genetti, Carol); 11. Multiple constraints on reference form: Null, pronominal, and full reference in Mapudungun (by Arnold, Jennifer E.); 12. Argument splits in Finnish grammar and discourse (by Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa); 13. Core arguments and the inversion of the nominal hierarchy in Roviana (by Corston-Oliver, Simon H.); 14. Preferred Argument Structure in early Inuktitut spontaneous speech data (by Allen, Shanley E.M.); 15. The role of Preferred Argument Structure for understanding aphasic sentence planning (by Kohn, Susan E.); 16. Nominal information flow in the talk of two boys with autism (by Weber, Elizabeth G.); 17. Tracking the deer: Nominal reference, parallelism and Preferred Argument Structure in Itzaj Maya narrative genres (by Hofling, Charles Andrew); 18. Narrator virtuosity and the strategic exploitation of Preferred Argument Structure in Mocho: Repetition and constructed speech in Mocho narrative (by Martin, Laura); 19. Preferred Argument Structure Bibliography; 20. Name index; 21. Language index; 22. Subject index

Reviews

This volume is an important contribution to the field of discourse-grammar interaction because it adopts a crosslinguistic approach that neglects neither the (potential) universals nor the language-particular differences. [...], it teaches us a lot about how grammar-relevant discourse tendencies can be studied. Those who want to understand the discourse basis of grammar will want to take this line of research as one of their starting points. -- Martin Haspelmath, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology

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