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This book investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages, refuting the long-held claim that classifier languages do not have overt article determiners (D). Li Julie Jiang brings the typologically unique Nuosu Yi, a classifier language that has an overt article D, to the forefront of the theoretical investigation. By comparing nominal arguments in Nuosu Yi to those in Mandarin, a well-studied classifier language that has no overt evidence of article determiners, Jiang provides a new parametric account of variation among classifier languages and extends the account to argument formation in general.
List of contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Part I: A Classifier Language without D: Mandarin
- Chapter 2: Bare Numeral Classifier Phrases and Bare Nouns in Mandarin
- Chapter 3: Plurality and Complex Nominal Arguments in Mandarin: still without D
- Part II: A Classifier Language with D: Nuosu Yi
- Chapter 4: Classifier Languages with D: Nuosu Yi
- Part III: When What You See is What You Get and When it is Not--Language Universals, Variation, and Typology of Nominal Arguments
- Chapter 5: Variation in Classifier languages
- Chapter 6: Implications on Nominal Argument Formation in General
- Chapter 7: Conclusion
- Bibliography.
About the author
Li Julie Jiang is Associate Professor of Chinese Linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures.
Summary
Nominal Arguments in Language Variation investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages, refuting the long-held claim that classifier languages do not have overt article determiners. Li Julie Jiang brings the typologically unique Nuosu Yi, a classifier language that has an overt definite determiner (D), to the forefront of the theoretical investigation. By comparing nominal arguments in Nuosu Yi to those in Mandarin, a well-studied classifier language that has no overt evidence of an article determiner, Jiang provides new accounts of variation among classifier languages and extends the parameters to argument formation in general. In addition to paying particular attention to these two classifier languages, the discussion of nominal arguments also covers a wider range of classifier languages and number marking languages from Romance, Germanic, and Slavic to Hindi.
Using a broad cross-linguistic perspective and detailed empirical analysis, Nominal Arguments in Language Variation is an important contribution to research on classifier languages and the fields of theoretical syntax, semantics, language variation, and linguistic typology.
