Impersonal Constructions

A cross-linguistic perspective
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-90-272-0591-9
Verlag: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Buch, Englisch, Band 124, 641 Seiten, Format (B × H): 164 mm x 245 mm, Gewicht: 1320 g

Reihe: Studies in Language Companion Series

This volume offers a much needed typological perspective on impersonal constructions, which are here viewed broadly as constructions lacking a referential subject. The contributions to this volume deal with all types of impersonality, namely constructions featuring nonagentive subjects, including those with experiential predicates (A-impersonals), presentational constructions with a notional subject deficient in topicality (T-impersonals), and constructions with a notional subject lacking in referential properties (R-impersonals), i.e. both meteo-constructions and man-constructions. The typological discussion benefits from a good coverage of impersonality in European languages, but also includes considerations of several African, American, South-East Asian, Australian, and Oceanic languages. The variation in the cross-linguistic realization of impersonality and the diachronic pathways leading to and from impersonality documented in this volume point to a novel perspective on impersonals as transitional structures or an intermediate stage of a more basic diachronic change be it from transitive to intransitive, or from active to passive, or participant-to event-centered construction.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Malchukov, Andrej

Siewierska, Anna

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Semantik & Pragmatik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Theoretische Linguistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of contributors
Introduction
Andrej Malchukov and Anna Siewierska
Towards a typology of impersonal constructions: A semantic map approach
Andrej Malchukov and Akio Ogawa
Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals: Man-constructions vs. third person plural-impersonals in the languages of Europe
Anna Siewierska
Verbs of motion: Impersonal passivization between unaccusativity and unergativity
Werner Abraham
On the distribution of subject properties in formulaic presentationals of Germanic and Romance: A diachronic-typological approach
Volker Gast and Florian Haas
Impersonal constructions and accusative subjects in Late Latin
Michela Cennamo
From passive to impersonal: A case study from Italian and its implications
Anna Giacalone-Ramat and Andrea Sansò
Passive to anticausative through impersonalization: The case of Vedic and Indo-European
Leonid Kulikov
The Maa (Eastern Nilotic)Impersonal construction
Doris L. Payne
Impersonal constructions in Jóola-Banjal
Alain Christian Bassene and Denis Creissels
Impersonal configurations and theticity: The case of meteorological predications in Afroasiatic
Amina Mettouchi and Mauro Tosco
Revisiting impersonal constructions in Hebrew: Discourse-based perspectives
Ruth A. Berman
The elephant in the room: The impersonal -ne/-te construction in Polish
Anna Kibort
Meteorological verbs in Uralic languages – are there any impersonal structures to be found
Merja Salo
Impersonal constructions in Ket
Edward J. Vajda, Andrey Nefedov and Andrej Malchukov
Impersonal verbs in Central Alaskan Yupik (Eskimoan)
Osahito Miyaoka
Impersonals in Innu-Cree
Lynn Drapeau
A diachronic study of the impersonal passive in Ainu
Anna Bugaeva
Referential impersonal constructions in Mandarin
Yi Yan and Anna Siewierska
Impersonal constructions in some Oceanic languages
Claire Moyse-Faurie
Impersonal constructions in Umpithamu and the Lamalamic languages
Jean-Christophe Verstraete