Language Universals Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology

Bernard Comrie

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0631162569 ISBN 13: 9780631162568

Casa editrice: Blackwell Pub, 1989

Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by Greenberg and others, Professor Comrie is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals. The book has chapters on word order, case marking, relative clauses and causative contruction and is informed throughout by the conviction that an explanatory account of universal properties of human language cannot restrict itself to purely formal aspects. It must also take account of language use and relate formal properties to testable claims about cognition and cognitive development. This new edition has been revised to take account of new research in universals and typology in the past decade and applies its findings to the problems of generative grammatical theory.

L'autore:

Bernard Comrie was previously University Lecturer in Linguistics at Cambridge. His books include Aspect, and The Language of the Soviet Union.

Dalla quarta di copertina:

Since its first publication Language Universals and Linguistic Typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguistics – the analysis, comparison and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by Greenberg and others, Professor Comrie is particularly concerned with syntactico–semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case marking, relative clauses and causative constructions. His book is informed throughout by the conviction that an explanatory account of universal properties of human language cannot restrict itself to purely formal aspects. This new edition has been revised to take full account of new research in universals and typology in the past decade and more generally to consider how the approach advocated relates to recent advances in generative grammatical theory.