Publication

2016-10-11 - Oxford University Press

Language

English

Word Count

92,000 words, Guess

Page Count

368 pages

Physical Format

Hardcover

Identifiers

  • ISBN-100198723806
  • ISBN-139780198723806
  • OCLC Control Number958464304
  • Better World Books9780198723806
  • Open LibraryOL27708905M

Classifications

  • LCCPJ5213
  • LCCPJ5201 .C64 2016

Description

This book traces the changes in argument alignment that have taken place in Aramaic during its 3000-year documented history. Eleanor Coghill examines evidence from ancient Aramaic texts, recent dialectal documentation, and cross-linguistic parallels to provide an account of the pathways through which this alignment change took place. She argues that what became the ergative construction was originally limited mostly to verbs with an experiencer role, such as 'see' and 'hear', which could encode the experiencer with a dative. While this dative-experiencer scenario shows some formal similarities with other proposed explanations for alignment change, the data analysed in this book show that it is clearly distinct. The book draws important theoretical conclusions on the development of tense-conditioned alignment cross-linguistically, and provides a valuable basis for further research.

Subjects

Reader Reviews

No reviews yet for this book.

Be the first to share your thoughts!