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Zusatztext Excellent and thoroughly enjoyable book. It is a highly original and even a pioneering work. Informationen zum Autor Guy Deutscher is a Research Fellow in Historical Linguistics at St John's College, University of Cambridge. Klappentext Akkadian is one of the earliest attested languages and the oldest recorded Semitic language. It exists in written record between 25BC and 5BC, much of it in letters and reports concerned with domestic and business matters, and written in colloquial language. It provides a unique and valuable source for the study of linguistic change but which, perhaps because of the impenetrability of its writing system, has rarely been exploited by linguists.In this book, Guy Deutscher examines the historical development of subordinate structures in Akkadian. A case study comprises the first two parts of the book, presenting an historical grammar of sentential complementation. Part I traces the emergence of new structures and describes how the finite complements first emerged in Babylonian. It also explains the grammaticalization of the quotative construction. Part II is a functional history which examines the changes in the functional roles ofdifferent structures. It shows how, during the history of the language, finite complements and embedded questions became more widespread, whereas other structures (e.g. infinite complements, parataxis, etc.) receded. Part III seeks to explain the historical developments in a theoretical light, showinghow the development in Akkadian is mirrored in many other languages. It goes on to suggest that the emergence of finite complementation may be seen as 'adaptive' and related to the development of more complex communication patterns.This book will be of interest to both specialists and general linguists alike. For specialists it offers a contribution towards a badly-needed historical grammar of the Akkadian language. For general linguists this book will be of interest not only for the questions which it raises about the nature of complementation, but also for the window which it provides on to this little-known language. Zusammenfassung Akkadian, an ancient Semitic language spoken in Assyria and Babylonia, is one of the earliest known languages, with a surviving written history from 2500BC to 500BC. Guy Deutscher investigates its development over these two millennia. Inhaltsverzeichnis Part I: Preliminary Chapters Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: What is Sentential Complementation? Chapter 3: Akkadian Part II: Structural History: The emergence of complementizers and quotatives Chapter 4: The Emergence of Finite Complements Chapter 5: The Grammaticalization of the Quotative Construction Part III: Functional History: The changes in the functional domain of complementation from 2500BC to 500BC Chapter 6: The Functional Domain of Complementation in Babylonian Chapter 7: Verbs of Knowledge, Perception, and Others Chapter 8: Manipulation and Modality Chapter 9: The WH-Functional Domain, Direct and Indirect Questions Part IV: The Development of Complementation as an Adaptive Process Chapter 10: Functional Parallels for the Babylonian Development Chapter 11: The Development of Complementation as an Adaptive Process ...
