Mermaid Construction

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2020

Mermaid Construction

A Compound-Predicate Construction with Biclausal Appearance

Edited by: Tasaku Tsunoda

Volume 6 in the series Comparative Handbooks of Linguistics [CHL]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110670844

Overview
Contents

About this book

This volume provides detailed studies of the crosslinguistically unusual mermaid construction in seventeen languages of Asia, including Modern Standard Japanese, and one language of Africa. This construction appears to be absent in languages of Europe, Oceania and the Americas. The name - mermaid construction - alludes to its paradoxical make-up, where the structure closely resembling a verb-predicate clause ends with what may look like a noun-predicate clause. Superficially it looks biclausal; however, syntactically it is monoclausal. It has a compound predicate which contains an independent noun, a clitic or an affix derived from a noun, or a nominalizer. Its compound predicate has a modal, evidential, aspectual, temporal, stylistic or discourse-related meaning. The paradox is resolved from a diachronic perspective insofar as a biclausal structure is reanalyzed as a monoclausal one. This volume shows how a noun may be reanalyzed to become a constituent of a predicate. It constitutes an important contribution to research on grammaticalization and in particular, the grammaticalization of nouns and more generally, to the typology of syntactic reanalysis.

Author information

Tasaku Tsunoda, Prof. Em. National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, Japan.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of authors Publicly Available Download PDF	x
Maps Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Genetic classification of languages examined or referred to Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1 Mermaid construction: An introduction and summary Tasaku Tsunoda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I. SOV languages
2 Modern Standard Japanese Tasaku Tsunoda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
3 Mitsukaido dialect of Japanese Kan Sasaki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
4 Old and Early Middle Japanese Asako Miyachi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
5 Irabu Ryukyuan Michinori Shimoji Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
6 Korean Joungmin Kim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
7 Kolyma Yukaghir Fubito Endo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	333
8 Sakha (Yakut) Fuyuki Ebata Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	363
9 Khalkha Mongolian Hiroyuki Umetani Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387
10 Amdo Tibetan Shiho Ebihara Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	419
11 nDrapa Satoko Shirai Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	465
12 Kathmandu Newar Kazuyuki Kiryu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	511
13 Burmese Atsuhiko Kato Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	557
14 Kurux Masato Kobayashi and Tasaku Tsunoda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	605
15 Hindi Yasunari Imamura Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	651
16 Sidaama Kazuhiro Kawachi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	679
II. SVO languages
17 Thai Kiyoko Takahashi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	737
III. VSO/VOS languages
18 Tagalog Masumi Katagiri Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	781
IV Languages in which the order of S, O and V is not fixed
19 Koryak Megumi Kurebito Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	817
Index of names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	851
Index of languages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	857
Index of subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	861

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Scholars interested in General Linguistics, Linguistic Typology and Grammaticalization
Pages
- Front matter: 14
- Main content: 868
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
Keywords: Noun; Compound Predicate; Grammaticalization; Syntactic Reanalysis

eBook

Published: August 10, 2020
ISBN: 9783110670844

Hardcover

Published: August 10, 2020
ISBN: 9783110670806