The general objective of the study is systematic examination of the processes involved in the formation and evolution of complex sentence constructions in a group of genetically related languages. The Chadic language group, at about 140 languages, constitutes the largest and most diversified branch of the Afroasiatic family. One of the findings of the present work is that languages starting from the same base may develop quite different morphological and syntactic structures. With respect to issues of general linguistic interest, the book deals with motivations for grammaticalization: It is proposed that one of the most important motivations is satisfaction of the principle of well formedness, that is, that every element in an utterance must have its role transparent to the hearer either by inherent lexical properties or by grammatical means. In the present work both aspects of grammaticalization, viz. the emergence of grammatical constructions and the emergence of grammatical morphemes, are given equal weight. In addition to semantic metaphor and metonymy as mechanisms in the processes of grammaticalization, the present work develops the notion of semiotic metonymy, whereby a part of a sign performs the function of the sign. It is shown that semiotic metonymy plays an important role in the grammaticalization of grammatical morphemes and constructions into other morphemes and constructions. The book also shows that unindirectionality is not a governing principle with respect to the development of grammatical morphemes into other grammatical morphemes; rather, there is considerable evidence and theoretical justification for the bidirectionality principle.

The general objective of the study is systematic examination of the processes involved in the formation and evolution of complex sentence constructions in a group of genetically related languages. The Chadic language group, at about 140 languages, constitutes the largest and most diversified branch of the Afroasiatic family. One of the findings of the present work is that languages starting from the same base may develop quite different morphological and syntactic structures. With respect to issues of general linguistic interest, the book deals with motivations for grammaticalization: It is proposed that one of the most important motivations is satisfaction of the principle of well formedness, that is, that every element in an utterance must have its role transparent to the hearer either by inherent lexical properties or by grammatical means. In the present work both aspects of grammaticalization, viz. the emergence of grammatical constructions and the emergence of grammatical morphemes, are given equal weight. In addition to semantic metaphor and metonymy as mechanisms in the processes of grammaticalization, the present work develops the notion of semiotic metonymy, whereby a part of a sign performs the function of the sign. It is shown that semiotic metonymy plays an important role in the grammaticalization of grammatical morphemes and constructions into other morphemes and constructions. The book also shows that unindirectionality is not a governing principle with respect to the development of grammatical morphemes into other grammatical morphemes; rather, there is considerable evidence and theoretical justification for the bidirectionality principle.

New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax: Complex Sentences, Grammaticalization, Typology is the fourth in a set of four volumes dealing with the long-term evolution of Latin syntax, roughly from the 4th century BCE up to the 6th century CE. As in the other volumes, the non-technical style and extensive illustration with classical examples makes the content readable and immediately useful to the widest audience.

The papers in this volume in honor of Sandra Annear Thompson deal with complex sentences, an important topic in Thompson's career. The focus of the contributions is on the ways in which the grammatical properties of complex sentences are shaped by the communicative context in which they are produced, an approach to grammatical analysis that Thompson pioneered and developed in the course of her distinguished career.

The papers in this volume in honor of Sandra Annear Thompson deal with complex sentences, an important topic in Thompson’s career. The focus of the contributions is on the ways in which the grammatical properties of complex sentences are shaped by the communicative context in which they are produced, an approach to grammatical analysis that Thompson pioneered and developed in the course of her distinguished career.

In Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse Wendan Li offers a comprehensive and innovative account of how Mandarin Chinese, as a language without extensive morphological marking, highlights (or foregrounds) major events of a narrative and demotes (or backgrounds) other supporting descriptions. Qualitative and quantitative methods in the analysis and examinations of authentic written text provide extensive evidence to demonstrate that various types of morpho-syntactic devices are used in a wide range of structural units in Chinese to mark the distinction between foregrounding and backgrounding. The analysis paves the way for future studies to systematically approach grounding-related issues. The typological viewpoint adopted in the chapters serves well readers from both the Chinese tradition and other languages in discourse analysis.

This is a general introduction to grammaticalization, the change whereby lexical terms and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions, and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions. The authors synthesize work from several areas of linguistics, including historical linguistics, discourse analysis, and pragmatics. Data are drawn from many languages including Ewe, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hittite, Japanese, Malay, and especially English. This 2003 second edition has been thoroughly revised with substantial updates on theoretical and methodological issues that have arisen in the decade since the first edition, and includes a significantly expanded bibliography. Particular attention is paid to recent debates over directionality in change and the role of grammaticalization in creolization. Grammaticalization will be a valuable and stimulating textbook for all linguists interested in the development of grammatical forms and will also be of interest to readers in anthropology and psychology.

This book is the second volume of a two-volume set that synchronically and diachronically studies the Jin dialect of Northern Shaanxi Province in China, with a focus on six grammatical features of the dialect. The Jin dialect of Northern Shaanxi is one of the most ancient, complicated, and representative dialects of the Yellow River region and figures prominently in our understanding of the Jin dialect and northern Chinese dialects as a whole. The book looks into the following six aspects of the dialect: subjunctive mood, expressions of complex sentence relationships, embedded sentence patterns, complex interrogative sentences, the formation of imperative modal particle “zhe”, and the phonetic variation of grammatical constituents. In the final chapter, the author discusses the significance of diachronic comparison as the research method for studying Chinese dialectal grammar. The book will be a useful reference for scholars and students interested in Jin dialects, Chinese dialects, and Chinese linguistics.

Based on analysis of more than 1,000 languages, this volume reconstructs more than 500 processes of grammatical change in the languages of the world.