Coverbs and Complex Predicates in Wagiman Hardback
by Stephen Wilson
Part of the CSLI - Stanford Monographs in Linguistics series
Hardback
Description
Wagiman is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by about ten people in the top end of the Northern Territory.
It possesses an unusual open class of words which Wilson calls 'coverbs'.
Coverbs are responsible for conveying a wide range of mostly verbal and adjectival meanings.
They are most frequently paired with an inflecting verb from a closed class to form a complex predicate: the coverb and inflecting verb jointly determine the verbal semantics and argument structure of the clause.
This book provides a descriptive and analytical account of the behaviour of coverbs in Wagiman, especially their role in complex predicate formation.
The author seeks to discover what governs which pairings of coverbs and inflecting verbs are possible, and how the meaning of the whole can be derived from the meanings of the parts.
Wilson pursues a formal account of Wagiman complex predicates within Lexical Functional Grammar, seeing complex predicate formation as the fusion of Lexical Conceptual Structures.
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:190 pages
- Publisher:Centre for the Study of Language & Information
- Publication Date:01/06/1999
- Category:
- ISBN:9781575861739
Other Formats
- Paperback from £16.50
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:190 pages
- Publisher:Centre for the Study of Language & Information
- Publication Date:01/06/1999
- Category:
- ISBN:9781575861739
