The emergence of functions in language /
This volume explores the question of why languages - even those spoken in the same geographical area by people who share similar social structures, occupations, and religious beliefs - differ in the meanings expressed by their grammatical systems. Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Marielle Butters outline a n...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford, United Kingdom :
Oxford University Press,
2020.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Series: | Oxford linguistics.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | This volume explores the question of why languages - even those spoken in the same geographical area by people who share similar social structures, occupations, and religious beliefs - differ in the meanings expressed by their grammatical systems. Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Marielle Butters outline a new methodology to explore these differences, and to discover the motivations behind the emergence of meanings. The motivations that they identify include: the communicative need triggered when the grammatical system inherently produces ambiguities; the principle of functional transparency; the opportunistic emergence of meaning, whereby unoccupied formal niches acquire a new function; metonymic emergence, whereby a property of an existing function receives a formal means of its own, thus creating a new function; and the emergence of functions through language contact. The book offers new analyses of a range of phenomena across different languages, such as benefactives and progressives in English, and point of view of the subject and goal orientation in Chadic languages. It also draws on a wealth of data from other languages including French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and a variety of less familiar Sino-Russian idiolects. |
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| Physical Description: | xiv, 321 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780198844297 0198844298 |