Impersonal constructions: a cross-linguistic perspective
by Malʹchukov, A. L., (Andreĭ Lʹvovich) Siewierska, Anna
"This volume offers a much needed typological perspective on impersonal constructions, which are here viewed broadly as constructions lacking a referential subject. The contributions to this volume deal with all types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates (A-impersonals), presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality (T-impersonals), and constructions with a notional subject lacking in r…
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- Full title :Impersonal constructions : a cross-linguistic perspective / edited by Andrej Malchukov, Anna Siewierska.
Summary
"This volume offers a much needed typological perspective on impersonal constructions, which are here viewed broadly as constructions lacking a referential subject. The contributions to this volume deal with all types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates (A-impersonals), presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality (T-impersonals), and constructions with a notional subject lacking in referential properties (R-impersonals), i.e. both meteo-constructions and man-constructions. The typological discussion benefits from a good coverage of impersonality in European languages, but also includes considerations of several African, American, South-East Asian, Australian, and Oceanic languages. The variation in the cross-linguistic realization of impersonality and the diachronic pathways leading to and from impersonality documented in this volume point to a novel perspective on impersonals as transitional structures or an intermediate stage of a more basic diachronic change be it from transitive to intransitive, or from active to passive, or participant-to event-centered construction."--Publisher's website.
Read More ↓Edition Statements
- Publication Date:©2011.
Publication Statements
- Publisher(s):John Benjamins
- Place of Publication:Amsterdam
- Language:eng
- Publication Date:©2011.
The Physical Object
- Description:ix, 641 pages : : illustrations ; : 25 cm.
Edition Identifiers
- ISBN:9789027205919, 9027205914, 9789027287168, 9027287163
- oclc:ocn695860317
- LC Classification:P293.5
- Dewey Decimal:415/.6
Table of Contents
Introduction / Andrej Malchukov and Anna Siewierska. -- Part I. Impersonal constructions. Towards a typology of impersonal constructions: A semantic map approach / Andrej Malchukov and Akio Ogawa ; Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals: Man-constructions vs. third person plural-impersonals in the languages of Europe / Anna Siewierska ; Verbs of motion: Impersonal passivization between unaccusativity and unergativity / Werner Abraham ; On the distribution of subject properties in formulaic presentationals of Germanic and Romance: A diachronic-typological approach / Volker Gast and Florian Haas. -- Part II. Impersonal constructions. Impersonal constructions and accusative subjects in Late Latin / Michela Cennamo ; From passive to impersonal: A case study from Italian and its implications / Anna Giacalone Ramat and Andrea Sansò ; Passive to anticausative through impersonalization: The case of Vedic and Indo-European / Leonid Kulikov. -- Part III. Cross-linguistic variation in Impersonal constructions. The Maa (Eastern Nilotic) Impersonal construction / Doris L. Payne ; Impersonal constructions in Jóola-Banjal / Alain Christian Bassène and Denis Creissels ; Impersonal c…
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