Morpheme Order and Semantic Scope: Word Formation in the Athapaskan Verb

by Keren Rice

Overview

Athapaskan languages are of great linguistic interest due to their intricate morphology. In this clear and insightful book, Keren Rice offers a rich survey of morpheme ordering in Athapaskan verbs, with implications for both synchronic grammar and language change. She argues that verb structure is predictable across Athapaskan languages if certain abstract aspects of meaning are considered. This is the first major comparative study of its type for Athapaskan languages, combining descriptive depth with a contemporary theoretical perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521583541
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/18/2000
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #90
Pages:	468
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.22(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: beginning the journey; Part I. First Steps: 2. Introducing the problem; 3. Global uniformity and local variability: a possible account; Part II. The Lexical Terms: 4. First stop: introducing the lexical items; 5. A brief side trip: the position of the verb stem; 6. Ordering of the lexical items; 7. Voice/valence; 8. Summary: lexical items; Part III. The Functional Items: 9. An introduction to the functional elements; 10. Pronominals; 11. The aspect system; 12. Qualifiers and their ordering; 13. On the ordering of functional items; Part IV. A View of the Lexicon: 14. The scopal hypothesis and simplifying the lexicon; 15. Evidence from the lexicon; Part V. The End of the Journey: 16. Looking back, looking ahead; Part VI. Appendices: Appendix 1. Templates and affix ordering; Appendix 2. The languages; Appendix 3. Summary of constraints and language differences; Notes; References; Indexes.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'This book treats virtually all of the important matters pertaining to the grammatical features of the Athapaskan verb word, in depth for an impressive number of individual languages and in sumptuous comparative detail for languages representative of the family as a whole …The book contains at least a dozen detailed and interesting discussions of the ordering of elements in the Athapaskan verb word. It contains much more than this, however. New analyses of many aspects of the Athapaskan verb are developed. These are consistently of great value and full of the insight and scholarship we have come to expect from this fine linguist and Athapaskanist … Rice's book is a treasure. Though it is organized around the theme of morpheme order, it is a rich source of both problems and solutions in Athapaskan linguistics generally and deserves to be considered a classic in the field.' Ken Hale, Diachronica

Editorial Reviews

'This book treats virtually all of the important matters pertaining to the grammatical features of the Athapaskan verb word, in depth for an impressive number of individual languages and in sumptuous comparative detail for languages representative of the family as a whole …The book contains at least a dozen detailed and interesting discussions of the ordering of elements in the Athapaskan verb word. It contains much more than this, however. New analyses of many aspects of the Athapaskan verb are developed. These are consistently of great value and full of the insight and scholarship we have come to expect from this fine linguist and Athapaskanist … Rice's book is a treasure. Though it is organized around the theme of morpheme order, it is a rich source of both problems and solutions in Athapaskan linguistics generally and deserves to be considered a classic in the field.' Ken Hale, Diachronica

From the Publisher