Serial Verbs in Oceanic - A Descriptive Typology

Zusatztext ... excellent book ... Crowley has a lucid and easy style, provides abundant illustrative examples and presents his arguments with clarity. I found the book immediately enjoyable, which is not true of many linguistic works. Informationen zum Autor Terry Crowley was Associate Professor in the Department of General and Applied Linguistics at the University of Waikato. He has researched languages in Vanuatu for 25 years, and has written about the Paamese and Erromangan languages. He has produced a dictionary of Bislama, and a detailed account of its historical development. Klappentext This book describes the diversity of serial verb constructions within Oceanic languages. Serial verb constructions are sequences of verbs placed one after another to express meanings which in other languages are typically expressed by means of single verbs. It has long been established that West African, Southeast Asian and Papuan languages are serializing languages, but the construction has only comparatively recently been recognized in Oceanic languages, which belong to a very large sub-group of the Austronesian family. Zusammenfassung Though the construction is rare in English, the use of serial verbs is common in many languages. This book shows what serial verbs are, where they are found (particularly in the Oceanic languages of the Pacific), and how current theory accounts for them. The author argues that their formation is a consequence of contact between different languages. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1: Linguistic typology and serial verbs 2: Oceanic languages, serial verbs and linguistic descriptions 3: Paamese serial verbs 4: The distribution and evolution of Oceanic serial verbs 5: The dissolution of Oceanic serial verbs 6: Oceanic serial verbs and Melanesian Pidgin 7: Oceanic serial verbs and the broader context References Index

Product details

• Authors: Terry Crowley, the Late Terry ( Crowley, The late Terry (formerly University of Waikato) Crowley
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.11.2002
• EAN: 9780198241355
• ISBN: 978-0-19-824135-5
• No. of pages: 300
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Humanities (general); SOCIAL SCIENCE / Regional Studies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Grammar & Punctuation, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax, Regional Studies, Regional / International studies, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Historical & comparative linguistics, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Australasia, Oceania, Pacific Islands, Atlantic Islands, Australasia, Oceania & other land areas, Historical and comparative linguistics