Locative predications in Chadic languages : implications for semantic analysis /
The general aim of the book is to demonstrate that the grammatical systems of individual languages code unique semantic structures. These semantic structures should be the main object of semantic description. The role of semantic structures encoded in grammatical systems is examined within a specifi...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford :
Oxford University Press,
[2024]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | The general aim of the book is to demonstrate that the grammatical systems of individual languages code unique semantic structures. These semantic structures should be the main object of semantic description. The role of semantic structures encoded in grammatical systems is examined within a specific area, namely, how languages convey a presumably universal task such as information about the location of an entity or an event in a place and movements of an entity in space. The demonstration is based on non-aprioristic analyses of all of the formal coding means used for locative expressions in eight typologically distinct languages that belong to three branches of the Chadic family (Afroasiatic phylum), spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Chadic languages were chosen because some of them represent semantic and syntactic characteristics involving locative expressions that have not been observed in or described in other languages. The most important of these characteristics is the coding of the locative domain in the grammatical system. The crucial contribution of the volume is that it demonstrates the existence of the semantic structure coded by the grammatical system of the language, and that the forms of the utterances in the language are determined by the functions encoded in the grammatical system, by means of coding found in the language, and by the locus within the utterance where various functions are coded. The volume also demonstrates that the syntactic properties of some lexical items are determined by the functions encoded in the grammatical system. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource : illustrations. |
| Audience: | Specialized. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN: | 9780191998171 0191998176 |