Word Order Variation - Semitic, Turkic and Indo-European Languages in Contact

In the Iranic-Semitic-Turkic contact area, where many languages are described as verb-final, 'Targets' (Goals, Recipients, etc.) tend to appear in the immediate postverbal position, a pattern violating the alleged 'basic word order'.
Investigating empirical material, the present volume examines the idea of its contact-induced origin by combining various languages from inside and outside this contact area: the Greek variety Romeyka; Indic Domari; Iranic Balochi, Kurdish, Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian and Sogdian; Nilotic Maa; Semitic Arabic and Aramaic; Siberian and Iran-Turkic. The contributors investigate word order variation of transitive, ditransitive, and copula structures as well as intransitives with Targets. Their analyses highlight the relevance of grammatical, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive principles. The volume highlights the importance of Target structures for linguistic theory by offering new perspectives and will be of interest to typologists and linguists interested in word order variation and information structure.

About the author

Hiwa Asadpour, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany; University of Tokyo, Japan; Thomas Jügel, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

Product details

• Assisted by: Hiwa Asadpour (Editor), Jügel (Editor), Thomas Jügel (Editor)
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.10.2024
• EAN: 9783111631813
• ISBN: 978-3-11-163181-3
• No. of pages: 269
• Weight: 569 g
• Illustrations: 11 b/w and 14 col. ill., 38 b/w tbl.
• Series: Studia Typologica; Studia Typologica [STTYP]
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Target, Linguistics, Indoeuropäische Sprachen, Semitische Sprachen, Sprachkontakt, Indo-European, Indo-Europäisch, language contact, General studies, SCI000000 SCIENCE / General, Paperback Project, word order, Semitic, Turkic