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Book Cover for: Applicative Morphology: Neglected Syntactic and Non-Syntactic Functions, Sara Pacchiarotti

Applicative Morphology: Neglected Syntactic and Non-Syntactic Functions

Sara Pacchiarotti

This book is about recurrent functions of applicative morphology not included in typologically-oriented definitions. Based on substantial cross-linguistic evidence, it challenges received wisdom on applicatives in several ways. First, in many of the surveyed languages, applicatives are the sole means to introduce a non-Actor semantic role into a clause. When there is an alternative way of expression, the applicative counterpart often has no valence-increasing effect on the targeted root. Second, applicative morphology can introduce constituents which are not syntactic objects and/or co-occur with obliques. Third, functions such as conveying aspectual nuances to the predicate (intensity, repetition, habituality) or its arguments (partitive P, highly individuated P), narrow-focusing constituents, and functioning as category-changing devices are attested in geographically distant and genetically unrelated languages. Further, this volume reveals that spatial-related morphology is prone to developing applicative functions in disparate languages and phyla. Finally, several contributions discuss the diachrony of applicative constructions and their (non-syntactic) attested functions, including a case of applicatives-in-the-making.

Book Details

  • Publisher: de Gruyter Mouton
  • Publish Date: Nov 4th, 2024
  • Pages: 483
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.21in - 6.14in - 0.97in - 1.48lb
  • EAN: 9783111631783
  • Categories: Linguistics - SemanticsLinguistics - Syntax

About the Author

Sara Pacchiarotti, Ghent University, Belgium; Fernando Zúñiga, University of Bern, Switzerland.