The Story of Zero

Author
T. Givón | University of Oregon
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027212399 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00
 
PaperbackAvailable
ISBN 9789027264084 | EUR 36.00 | USD 54.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027266460 | EUR 99.00/36.00*
| USD 149.00/54.00*
 
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The zero coding of referents or other clausal constituents is one of the most natural, communicatively and cognitively-transparent grammatical devices in human language. Together with its functional equivalent, obligatory pronominal agreement, zero is both extremely widespread cross-linguistically and highly frequent in natural text. In the domain of reference, zero represents, somewhat paradoxically, either anaphorically-governed high continuity or cataphorically-governed low topicality. And whether in conjoined/chained or syntactically-subordinate clauses, zero is extremely well-governed, at a level approaching 100% in natural text. The naturalness, cross-language ubiquity and well-governedness of zero have been largely obscured by an approach that, for 30-odd years, has considered it a typological exotica, the so-called "pro-drop" associated with a dubious "non-configurational" language type. The main aim of this book is to reaffirm the naturalness, universality and well-governedness of zero by studying it from four closely related perspectives: (i) cognitive and communicative function; (ii) natural-text distribution; (iii) cross-language typological distribution; and (iv) the diachronic rise of referent coding devices. The latter is particularly central to our understanding the functional interplay between zero anaphora, pronominal agreement and related referent-coding devices.
[Not in series, 204] 2017.  xv, 414 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
Cited by

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Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFK: Grammar, syntax

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009060: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2016029687 | Marc record