Topics in Oceanic Morphosyntax / / ed. by Joachim Sabel, Claire Moyse-Faurie.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• MitwirkendeR: Bril, Isabelle,; Ikiua, Ofania,; Margetts, Anna,; Massam, Diane,; Moyse-Faurie, Claire,; Otsuka, Yuko,; Pearce, Elizabeth,; Polinsky, Maria,; Potsdam, Eric,; Sabel, Joachim,; Starks, Donna,; Vernaudon, Jacques,
• HerausgeberIn: Moyse-Faurie, Claire,; Sabel, Joachim,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] , 239
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (344 p.)

This monograph is a collection of selected papers on Oceanic languages. For the first time, aspects of the morphology and syntax of Oceanic languages such as the encoding of sentence types, the structure of the noun phrase, noun incorporation, constituent order, and ergative vs. accusative alignment are discussed from a comparative point of view, thus drawing attention to genetic, areal and language-specific features. The individual papers are based on the field work of the authors on lesser-described and endangered languages and are basically descriptive studies. At the same time they also explore the theoretical implications of the data presented and analyzed, as well as the historical development of certain morpho-syntactic phenomena, without basing these explorations on a single theoretical framework. The book provides new insights into the morphosyntactic structures of Oceanic languages and is of interest primarily for linguists working on Austronesian, in particular Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian languages, but also for typologists and linguists working on language change.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of contents -- Introduction -- Part one: Sentential syntax and sentence types -- Deriving linear order in OV/VO languages: evidence from Oceanic languages -- Questions and answers in Niuean -- Questions and word order in Polynesian -- Nominalization and exclamation in Oceanic languages -- Part two: Nominal morphosyntax -- Two or three things in the Unua noun phrase -- Noun incorporation in Saliba -- Noun-phrase conjunction in Austronesian languages: additive, inclusory and comitative strategies -- Part three: Historical developments -- Neither accusative nor ergative: an alternative analysis of case in Eastern Polynesian -- Grammaticalization of Tahitian mea ‘thing, matter’ into a stative aspect -- Subject index -- Language index