Linguistik-Klassifikation: Syntax
24 search hits
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Chinese as a topic-comment (not topic-prominent and not SVO) language
(2009)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- Many linguists in China and the West have talked about Chinese as a topic-comment language, that is, a language in which the structure of the clause takes the form of a topic, about which something is to be said, and a comment, which is what is said about the topic, rather than being a language with a subject-predicate structure like that of English. Y. R. Chao (1968), for example, said that all Chinese clauses have topic-comment structure and there are no exceptions.
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Relative clause structures in the Rawang language
(2009)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- This paper discusses the types of relative clause and noun complement structures found in the Rawang language, a Tibeto-Burman language of northern Myanmar, as well as their origin and uses, with data taken mainly from naturally occurring texts. Two types are preposed relative clauses, but in one the relative clause is nominalized, and in the other it is not. The non-nominalized form with a general head led to the development of nominalizing suffixes and one type of nominalized relative clause structure. As the nominalized form is a nominal itself, it can be postposed to the head in an appositional structure. There is also discussion of the Rawang structures in the context of Tibeto-Burman and the development of relative clause structures in the language family.
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Nominalization in Rawang
(2009)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- This paper discusses the various forms, origins, and uses of nominalization in the Rawang (Rvwàng) language, a Tibeto-Burman language of northern Myanmar, with data taken mainly from naturally occurring texts.
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On grammatical relations as constraints on referent identification
(2006)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- Based on a Relevance Theory-informed view of language development, this paper argues that grammatical relations are construction-specific conventionalizations (grammaticalizations) of implicatures which arise out of repeated patterns of reference to particular types of referents. Once conventionalized, these structures function to constrain the hearer's identification of referents in discourse. As they are construction-specific, and hence language-specific, there is no category "subject" across languages; different languages will either show this type of grammaticalization or not, and if they do, may show it or not in different constructions. Any cross-linguistic use of terms such as "subject" (and "S", as in "SOV") should then be avoided.
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Copula constructions in Rawang
(2007)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- This paper discusses the various uses of the copula in the Rawang language, a Tibeto-Burman language of northern Myanmar, plus other types of copula like-constructions, with data taken mainly from naturally occurring texts.
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Evidentiality in Qiang
(2003)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- The Qiang language is spoken by about 70,000 (out of 200,000) Qiang people, plus 50,000 people classified as Tibetan by the Chinese government. Most Qiang speakers live in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau in the mountainous northwest part of Sichuan Province, China. The Qiang language is a member of the Qiangic branch of the Tibeto-Burman family of the Sino-Tibetan stock. Within Tibeto-Burman, a number oflanguages show evidence of evidential systems, but these systems cannot be reconstructed to any great time depth. The data used in this chapter is from Ranghang Village, Chibusu District, Mao County in Aba Prefecture.
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An overview of Sino-Tibetan morphosyntax
(2003)
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Randy J. LaPolla
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Problems of methodology and explanation in word order universals research
(2002)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- Ever since the publication of Greenberg 1963, word order typologists have attempted to formulate and refine implicational universals of word order so as to characterize the restricted distribution of certain word order patterns, and in some cases have also attempted to develop general principles to explain the existence of those universals.
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Middle voice marking in Tibeto-Burman
(1996)
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Randy J. LaPolla
- Middle voice marking is very rarely recognized as such in the grammars written on Tibeto-Burman languages. It is often simply treated as a normal direct reflexive or as an intransitivizer. In order to draw the attention of scholars to the existence and function of middle voice marking in Tibeto-Burman languages, the present paper discusses the form and function of middle marking in several of these languages. We will first discuss key facts about middle marking in general, then discuss the individual Tibeto-Burman examples.
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Pragmatic relations and word order in Chinese
(1995)
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Randy J. LaPolla
