Subordination

Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-19-928200-5
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 376 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 565 g

Reihe: Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory

This book presents a typology of subordination systems across the world's languages. Traditional definitions of subordination are based on morphosyntactic criteria, such as clausal embedding or non-finiteness. Sonia Cristofaro shows that these definitions are untenable in a cross-linguistic perspective, and provides a cognitive based definition of subordination.

The analysis is based on a representative 80 language sample, and represents the broadest study so far conducted on the cross-linguistic coding of several types of complement, adverbial, and relative sentence. These sentence types display considerable structural variation across languages. However, this variation turns out to be constrained, and appears crucially related to the functional properties of individual sentence types. This work is the first systematic attempt to establish
comprehensive implicational hierarchies describing the coding of complement, adverbial, and relative sentences at a single stroke. Concepts from typological theory and cognitive linguistics are integrated to account for these hierarchies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cristofaro, Sonia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie

Über Autor(innen)

Sonia Cristofaro received her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pavia in 1998, and is now Associate Professor of Linguistics at the same university. Her main research areas include syntax, semantics, and typology. She is the author of a book on complementation in Ancient Greek (Aspetti della complementatione frasale in greco antico, 1996). Her publications also include various articles on the syntax and semantics of complex
sentences.