This book presents a typology of subordination systems across the world's languages. Traditional definitions of subordination are based on morphosyntactic criteria, such as clausal embedding or non-finiteness. The book shows that these definitions are untenable in a cross-linguistic perspective, and provides a cognitively based definition of subordination.
Author(s): Sonia Cristofaro
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 372
Contents......Page 6
List of Figures......Page 9
List of Tables......Page 11
List of Abbreviations......Page 14
Acknowledgements......Page 16
1.1 Overview......Page 18
1.2 The functional-typological approach......Page 22
1.3 Outline of the book......Page 31
2.1 Background to the problem......Page 32
2.2 The Continuum Approach......Page 39
2.3 The Conceptual Approach......Page 42
2.4 Towards a functional definition of subordination......Page 46
3.1 Introduction......Page 68
3.2 The form of the verb......Page 70
3.3 The coding of participants......Page 92
3.4 Concluding remarks......Page 98
4.1 Introduction......Page 100
4.2 Implicational generalizations......Page 101
4.3 Language sampling......Page 108
5.1 Introduction......Page 112
5.2 Complement-taking predicates......Page 116
5.3 Semantic features of complement relations......Page 126
5.4 Cross-linguistic coding of complement relations......Page 139
5.5 Cross-linguistic coding of complement relations and the semantics of complement-taking predicates......Page 148
5.6 Data supporting the implicational hierarchies......Page 154
5.7 Language data......Page 157
6.1 Introduction......Page 172
6.2 Adverbial relation types......Page 174
6.3 Semantic features of adverbial relations......Page 179
6.4 Cross-linguistic coding of adverbial relations......Page 184
6.5 Cross-linguistic coding of adverbial relations and functional factors......Page 189
6.6 Data supporting the implicational hierarchies......Page 195
6.7 Language data......Page 197
7.1 Introduction......Page 212
7.2 Cross-linguistic coding of relative relations......Page 217
7.3 Cross-linguistic coding of relative relations and functional factors......Page 224
7.4 Data supporting the implicational hierarchies......Page 230
7.5 Language data......Page 231
8.1 Introduction......Page 245
8.2 Global hierarchies of subordination relations......Page 246
8.3 Cross-linguistic coding of subordination relations and functional factors......Page 248
8.4 Summary remarks......Page 259
8.5 Data supporting the implicational hierarchies......Page 262
9.2 Syntagmatic economy and the Principle of Information Recoverability......Page 265
9.3 Iconicity of independence......Page 268
9.4 Iconicity of distance......Page 270
9.5 Processes and things......Page 271
9.6 Concluding remarks......Page 287
10.1 Introduction......Page 290
10.2 Correlations between individual morphosyntactic phenomena......Page 294
10.3 Explaining the correlation patterns: processes and things......Page 301
10.4 Explaining the observed correlations: syntagmatic economy......Page 303
10.5 A frequency hierarchy for the coding of subordination......Page 306
10.6 Data supporting the correlation patterns......Page 307
11. Conclusions and Prospects......Page 313
1. Sources of information on the languages in the sample......Page 321
2. Genetic affiliation of the languages in the sample......Page 324
3. Location of the languages in the sample......Page 327
4. The constructions examined in the study......Page 328
References......Page 351
A......Page 362
D......Page 363
M......Page 364
P......Page 365
T......Page 366
Z......Page 367
O......Page 368
Y......Page 369
H......Page 370
S......Page 371
W......Page 372
