Morphemes combined with the Arabic noun are clearly described in the literature, but their interpretation can be somewhat nebulous, and a unified scholarly analysis does not as yet exist. This book proposes a new and unified perspective regarding these morphemes, analyzing them as copulae, and the constructions in which they occur as instances of predication. Analyzing morphemes combined with the Arabic noun as copulae explains many of their puzzling properties (rise and loss of declension, proteiform nature of nunation, etc.). Emphasis is placed on data previously marginalized in the description of these morphemes, from pre-Classical Arabic transmitted by Arab Grammarians, Semitic languages that contributed to the emergence of Arabic through language contact, and roughly 30 languages genetically unrelated to Arabic.

This book presents a novel account of syntactic and semantic variation in copular and existential sentences in Classical Hebrew. Like many languages, the system of Classical Hebrew copular sentences is quite complex, containing zero, pronominal, and verbal forms as well as eventive and inchoative semantics. Approaching this subject from the framework of Distributed Morphology provides an elegant and comprehensive explanation for both the syntactic and semantic variation in these sentences. This book also presents a theoretical model for analyzing copular sentences in other languages included related phenomena– such as pseudo-copulas. It is also a demonstration of what can be gained by applying modern linguistic analyses to dead languages. Citing and building off previous studies on this topic, this book will be of interest to those interested in the theoretical examination of copular and existential sentences and to those interested in Classical Hebrew more specifically.

This volume explores the many ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into genders or classes. The findings in the volume have significant implications for syntactic theory and theories of interpretation, and contribute to a greater understanding of the interplay between inflection and derivation.

This book provides a forum for methodological discussions emanating from researchers engaged in studying how individuals acquire an additional language. Whereas publications in the field of second language acquisition generally report on empirical studies with relatively little space dedicated to questions of method, the current book gave authors the opportunity to more fully develop a discussion piece around a methodological issue in connection with the interpretation of language-learning data. The result is a set of seven thought-provoking contributions from researchers with diverse interests. Three main topics are addressed in these chapters: the role of native-speaker norms in second-language analyses, the impact of epistemological stance on experimental design and/or data interpretation, and the challenges of transcription and annotation of language-learning data, with a focus on data ambiguity. Authors expand on these crucial issues, reflect on best practices, and provide in many instances concrete examples of the impact they have on data interpretation.

Une source inconnue indique : "This book provides a comprehensive overview of current research in African languages, drawing on insights from anthropological linguistics, typology, historical and comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. It covers a wide range of topics, from grammatical sketches of individual languages to sociocultural and extralinguistic issues."

In light of recent generative minimalism, and comparative parametric theory of language variation, the book investigates key features and parameters of Arabic grammar. Part I addresses morpho-syntactic and semantic interfaces in temporality, aspectuality, and actionality, including the Past/Perfect/Perfective ambiguity akin to the very synthetic temporal morphology, collocating time adverb construal, and interpretability of verbal Number as pluractional. Part II is dedicated to nominal architecture, the behaviour of bare nouns as true indefinites, the count/mass dichotomy (re-examined in light of general, collective, and singulative DP properties), the mirror image ordering of serialized adjectives, and N-to-D Move in synthetic possession, proper names, and individuated vocatives. Part III examines the role of CP in time and space anchoring, double access reading (in a DAR language such as Arabic), sequence of tense (SOT), silent pronominal categories in consistent null subject languages (including referential and generic pro), and the interpretability of inflection. Semantic and formal parameters are set out, within a mixed macro/micro-parametric model of language variation. The book is of particular interest to students, researchers, and teachers of Arabic, Semitic, comparative, typological, or general linguistics.