Post-predicate elements in the Western Asian Transition ZoneGeoffrey Haig, Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand, Donald L. Stilo, Laurentia Schreiber, Nils Schiborr This volume explores word-order phenomena across a phylogenetically diverse sample of languages covering a region loosely referred to as the Western Asian Transition Zone, approximately corresponding to western Iran, northern Iraq, eastern Turkey and the Caucasus. The sample includes representatives from four branches of Indo-European (Iranian, Hellenic, Armenian, Indo-Aryan) as well as Turkic, Semitic, Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian and Northeast Caucasian. Methodologically, we apply a corpus-based approach to word-order, building on two purpose-built and fully accessible data-bases of spoken language corpora, WOWA (Word Order in Western Asia), and HamBam (Hamedan-Bamberg Corpus of Contemporary Spoken Persian). The majority of the languages are historically OV, yet exhibit high rates of post-verbal elements, and these constitute the primary focus of the volume. One of the major findings is the importance of semantic role in determining pre- versus post-verbal placement of clausal constituents: We identify a consistent bias towards post-verbal placement of spatial Goals, which is amplified by increasing areal proximity to the VO languages of the southwestern periphery of the region (Semitic). In the languages in and adjacent to the Caucasus, on the other hand, we find stronger effects of information structure in triggering post-verbal position. Along with contributions on individual languages and varieties, the volume includes an overview chapter outlining the theoretical background and the data sources, summary chapters on sub-regions, as well as contributions from an experimental and psycholinguistic perspective. |
Contents
Word order in the speech of KurmanjiTurkish bilinguals | 55 |
Postpredicate prosody in OV languages | 87 |
A crossdialect investigation of postverbal elements | 121 |
Notes on word order in Bashkardi | 155 |
Kholosi | 175 |
Postpredicate elements in Early New Persian 1013th Century | 231 |
The KurdishGorani continuum | 245 |
Postpredicate elements in Kartvelian and East Caucasian | 283 |
Postpredicate elements in Adyghe | 309 |
Word order variation in Romeyka | 337 |
Postpredicate arguments in Modern Eastern Armenian | 375 |
Khuzestani Arabic | 413 |
NeoAramaic in Iran and northeastern Iraq | 431 |
Arabic and Aramaic in eastern Anatolia | 471 |
Indices | 515 |
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Common terms and phrases
2024 this volume Addressees adpositional Adyghe animacy approach to areal areal typology arguments Asian Transition Zone Bashkardi Berlin Central Kurdish Central Kurdish Sanandaj clitic Coastal Balochi constituents copula corpus for investigating corpus-based approach data set definite direct objects doculects Donald Stilo effects in word example focus frequency Geoffrey Haig Georgian Gorani Gorani Gawraju grammar information structure investigating areal effects Iran Iranian languages Izadi Jastrow Jewish Khan Khuzestani Arabic Korn Koroshi Kurmanji language contact Language Science Press Laurentia Laurentia Schreiber linguistics Mahîr Mohammad Rasekh-Mahand Mohammadirad NENA nominal Noorlander Northern Kurdish noun Order in Western OV languages phrase post-predicate elements post-predicate position post-verbal placement postpositions pre-predicate predicate preposition preverbal pronominal pronouns prosodic Qəltu-Arabic recipients roles Samvelian Sanandaj Schiborr eds Schreiber & Nils Section speakers spoken-language-based corpus syntax Table texts tokens Turkic Turkish Turkmen Turoyo University of Bamberg Urmi verb Western Asia Western Asian Transition word order word order variation



