Word Order Variation: Semitic, Turkic and Indo-European Languages in Contact (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9783110790214)

In the Iranic-Semitic-Turkic contact area, where many languages are described as verb-final, 'Targets' (Goals, Recipients, etc.) tend to appear in the immediate postverbal position, a pattern violating the alleged 'basic word order'. Investigating empirical material, the present volume examines the idea of its contact-induced origin by combining various languages from inside and outside this contact area: the Greek variety Romeyka, Indic Domari, Iranic Balochi Kurdish, Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian and Sogdian, Nilotic Maa, Semitic Arabic and Aramaic, Sibiran and Iran-Turkic. The contributors investigate word order variation of transitive, ditransitive, and copula structures as well as intransitives with Targets. Their analyses highlight the relevance of grammatical, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive principles. The volume highlights the importance of Target structures for linguistic theory by offering new perspectives and will be of interest to typologists and linguists interested in word order variation and information structure.

Author: Hiwa Asadpour
ISBN-10: 3110790211
ISBN-13: 9783110790214
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Language: English
Published: 08/01/2022
Pages: 277
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d