The papers collected in this volume (including a comprehensive introduction) investigate semantic and discourse-related aspects of subordination and coordination, in particular the relationship between subordination/coordination at the sentence level and subordination/coordination - or hierarchical/non-hierarchical organization - at the discourse level. The contributions in part I are concerned with central theoretical questions; part II consists of corpus-based cross-linguistic studies of clause combining and discourse structure, involving at least two of the languages English, German, Dutch, French and Norwegian; part III contains papers addressing specific - predominantly semantic - topics relating to German, English or French; and the papers in part IV approach the topic of subordination, coordination and rhetorical relations from a diachronic (Old Indic and Early Germanic) perspective. The book aims to contribute to a better understanding of information packaging on the sentence and text level related, within a particular language as well as cross-linguistically.

Recent studies on the syntax and semantics of complex sentences have dealt with several challenges to the traditional boundaries between coordination and subordination. Some constructions belong to one of the two types according to syntactic criteria but relate to the other type on semantic grounds, whereas other constructions are not compatible with either the canonical syntactic or semantic tests traditionally employed to establish this distinction. Other constructions, by contrast, seem to have evolved in such a way that they now cross the divide between both types. The collection of papers in this volume delves further into the theoretical implications of previous analyses and focuses on a wide array of data from different languages, taking those challenges as a point of departure to develop innovative perspectives and to advance thought-provoking ideas.

This book presents corpus-based research on functional syntax. It is the first book to present a comprehensive investigation into grammatical metaphor in English clause combining in large-size corpora. By providing a systematic illustration of features such as parataxis, hypotaxis and embedding, it fills a gap in the systemic functional literature. It also offers insights into testing grammatical metaphors using a corpus linguistics methodology. The book is a useful resource for anyone interested in writing development.

This volume presents a collection of papers from the second Interfaces in Language conference, hosted from 5–7 May 2009 at the University of Kent at Canterbury by the University’s Centre for Language and Lingustic Studies (CLLS). Borne of a dissatisfaction with the rigid division of linguistics into sub-disciplines, Interfaces 2 offered specialists a platform to explore links between different approaches, and attracted participation from ten countries on four continents, addressing a wide range of themes. Contributions are arranged under three thematic headings: Categories and Orthodoxies; Contact, Conflict and Repertoire; and Language and Cognition. All, in their different ways, offer a challenge to received thinking or the rigidity of established categories. The papers explore a range of linguistic interfaces, probing the frontiers at the structural level between semantics and pragmatics, or challenging the notion of a clear division between semantics and syntax. A number of papers examine, in different ways, the interface between speech and writing, while other contributors apply the techniques of linguistic analysis to the study of translation, or to the stylistics of literature or journalism. The rejection of rigid modes of thinking has produced, in Interfaces in Language 2, an eclectic collection of thought-provoking papers of rare originality and quality.

This volume is a collection of studies on various aspects of word order variation in Turkish. As a head-final, left-branching ‘free’ word order language, Turkish raises a number of significant theory-internal as well as language-particular questions regarding linearization in language. Each of the contributions in the present volume offers a fresh insight into a number of these questions, thus, while expanding our knowledge of the language-particular properties of the word order phenomena, also contribute individually to the theory of linearization in general. Turkish is a configurational language. It licenses constructions in which constituents can occur in non-canonical presubject as well as postverbal positions. Presented within the assumptions of the generative tradition, the discussion and analyses of the various aspects of the linearization facts of the language offer a novel treatment of the issues therein. The authors approach the word order phenomena from a variety of perspectives, ranging from purely syntactic treatments, to accounts as syntax-PF interface or syntax-discourse interface phenomena or as output of base generation.

This book investigates specific syntactic means of event elaboration across seven Indo-European languages (English, German, Norwegian, French, Russian, Latin and Ancient Greek): bare and comitative small clauses (“absolutes”), participle constructions and related clause-like but non-finite adjuncts that increase descriptive granularity with respect to constitutive parts of the matrix event (elaboration in the narrowest sense), or describe eventualities that are co-located and connected with but not part of the matrix event. The book falls in two parts. Part I addresses central theoretical issues: How is the co-eventive interpretation of such adjuncts achieved? What is the internal syntax of participial and converb constructions? How do these constructions function at the discourse level, as compared to various finite structures that are available for co-eventive elaboration? Part II takes an empirical cross-linguistic perspective. It consists of five self-contained chapters that are based on parallel corpora and study either the use of a specific construction across at least two of the seven object languages, or how a specific construction is rendered in other languages.

In A Grammar of Lopit, Jonathan Moodie and Rosey Billington provide the first detailed description of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language traditionally spoken in the Lopit Mountains in South Sudan. Drawing on extensive primary data, the authors describe the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the Lopit language. Their analyses offer new insights into phenomena characteristic of Nilo-Saharan languages, such as ‘Advanced Tongue Root’ vowel distinctions, tripartitite number marking, and marked-nominative case systems, and they uncover patterns which are previously unattested within the Eastern Nilotic family, such as a three-way contrast in aspect, number marking with the ‘greater singular’, and two kinds of inclusory constructions. This book offers a significant contribution to the descriptive and typological literature on African languages.

This volume brings together ten papers presented at the 10th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (Lund, 2011). The papers cover a broad field of issues in Hungarian relating to phonetics, phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics, such as vowel harmony, particle verb constructions, impersonal use of personal pronouns, the diachronic development of comparative subclauses, pseudoclefts and wh-interrogatives. While the majority of the papers focus on Hungarian, four articles discuss questions relating to other languages. One article compares clausal coordinate ellipsis in Hungarian, Estonian, Dutch and German, another addresses the question how the information structural notions discourse new, Focus and Given relate to each other. Two articles focus on Finnish, discussing DP-extraction and participal constructions, respectively. The broad range of phenomena covered in this volume makes it relevant not just to scholars working on Hungarian, but to a general audience of generative linguists.

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 informa-tional 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 informa-tional 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.