This volume contains 22 of the papers presented at the 5th Conference on Afroasiatic Languages (CAL 5) held at Université Paris VII in June 2000. The authors report their latest research on the syntax, morphology, and phonology of quite a number of languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Tigrinya, Coptic Egyptian, Berber, Hausa, Beja, Somali, Gamo). The articles discuss new solutions to familiar questions such as the free state/construct state alternation of nouns, the Semitic template system, and the morphosyntax of nominal and verbal plurality. Ten of the papers center on morphology, especially the relation of phonology to syntax and morphology; others address questions at the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface; two papers also offer comparative and historical perspectives. Taken as a whole, the papers provide an accurate picture of the state of current research in Afroasiatic linguistics, containing important new data and new analyses. Given its coverage, the book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Afroasiatic languages and theoretical linguistics.

This volume presents a selection of papers from the 3rd Conference on Afroasiatic Languages, held in Sophia Antipolis, France, in 1996. The languages discussed include (varieties of) Arabic, Hebrew, Berber, Chaha, Wolof, and Old Egyptian.

The multi-volume Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian by Gábor Takács "promises to open a new chapter in Egyptian and Afro-Asiatic comparative lingustics" (A. Dolgopolsky, in Israel Oriental Studies). The amount of material offered, the extensive treatment of scholarly discussions on each item, and the insights into the connections of Egyptian and the related Afro-Asiatic (Semito-Hamitic) languages, including many new lexical parallels, will make it an indispensable tool for comparative purposes and an unchallenged starting point for every linguist in the field. This second volume is in fact the first volume of the very etymological dictionary. It comprises the Egyptian words with initial b-, p-, and f-. The reader will find the etymological entries even more detailed than those of the introductory volume, due to the full retrospective presentation of all etymologies proposed since A. Erman's time, and thanks to an extremely detailed discussion of all possible relevant data even on the less known Afro-Asiatic cognates to the Egyptian roots.

This collective volume explores clause-linkage strategies in a cross-linguistic perspective with greater emphasis on subordination. Part I presents some theoretical reassessment of syntactic terminologies and distinctive criteria for subordination, as well as typological methods based on sets of variables and statistics allowing cross-linguistic comparability. Part II deals with strategies relating to clause-chaining, conjunctive conjugations, converbial constructions, masdars. Part III centers on the interaction between the syntax, pragmatics, and semantics of clause-linking and subordination, in relation to informa­tional structure, to referential hierarchy, and correlative constructions. Part IV presents insights in the clause-linking and subordinating functions of some T.A.M. markers, verbal inflectional morphology and conjugation systems, which may also interact with informa­tional hierarchy, via the backgrounding effects and lack of illocutionary force of some aspect and mood forms. The volume is of particular interest to linguists and typologists working on clause-linkage systems and on the interface between syntax, pragmatics, and semantics.

This volume brings together papers which address issues regarding the copy theory of movement. According to this theory, a trace is a copy of the moved element that is deleted in the phonological component but is available for interpretation at L(ogical) F(orm). Thus far, the bulk of the research on the copy theory has mainly focused on interpretation issues at LF. The consequences of the copy theory for syntactic computation per se and for the syntax–phonology mapping, in particular, have received much less attention in the literature, despite its crucial relevance for the whole architecture of the model. As a contribution to fill this gap, this volume congregates recent work that deals with empirical and conceptual consequences of the copy theory of movement for the inner working of syntactic computations within the Minimalist Program, with special emphasis on the syntax–phonology mapping.

This volume brings together novel analyses of verbal plurality and distributivity. The contributions draw on a wide range of new empirical data from languages as diverse as Arabic, Cusco Quechua, European Portuguese, Hausa, Karitiana, Modern Hebrew and Russian. The introductory chapter gives an overview of the central issues that underlie much recent research on the semantics of event plurality. The papers on verbal plurality explore the interaction between verbal plurality and plural arguments in Arabic and European Portuguese, the semantics of additive particles in Modern Hebrew, the semantics of a range of pluractional markers in Cusco Quechua and the morphological variability of pluractional markers cross-linguistically. The papers on distributivity examine the syntax and semantics of reduplicated numerals in Karitiana and adnominal distributive markers. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language typology.

Exponence refers to the mapping of morphosyntactic structure to phonological representations, a research area which is not only highly controversial, but also approached in fundamentally different ways in theoretical morphology and phonology. This volume brings together leading specialists from morphosyntax and morphophonology. The authors address common problems, questions and solutions in both areas, and formulate a coherent research program for exponence which integrates the central insights of the last decades and provides important new challenges for the future. The book is aimed at phonologists, morphologists, and syntacticians of all theoretical persuasions at graduate level and above.

The volume advances our understanding of the role of scales and hierarchies across the linguistic sciences. Although scales and hierarchies are widely assumed to play a role in the modelling of linguistic phenomena, their status remains controversial, and it is these controversies that the present volume tackles head-on.

Parameters have lain at the core of linguistic research in the generative tradition for decades. The theoretical questions they have raised are deep and broad: this reference text investigates how contemporary linguistics has best tried to answer them. This book looks at how parameters might be properly defined and what their locus might be :lexical information, functional heads, the computational system, the phonological branch of the grammar. What kind of data forms trigger acquisition of a parameter? Are parameters necessary or can we study languages without making reference to them? The questions looked at are not just theoretical: how can a theory of parameters be used to help understand second language acquisition, and what contributions can it make to the study of language typology? This is the right time to gather all this information, dispersed in many different kinds of publications by single authors and groups, into one comprehensive volume.