Continuity of information structuring strategies in Eastern Khanty
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Andrey Filchenko
Abstract
The paper addresses the issue of cohesive units in language at the level of grammatical inventory. Based on analysis of discourse-pragmatic functions and propositional-semantic content, I illustrate the continuity in formal morphosyntactic means available in the system that are used for organization and structuring of information, namely identifying topical information vs. new via elision, word order, agreement, case, voice, and possessive markers. Selected methodology includes contrastive contextual analysis, attending to the information structure, in the general cognitive-functional framework. Based on the analysis of the corpus data and elicited tokens it is posited that Eastern Khanty displays strong correlation of reduced morphological complexity to increased pragmatic status of the discourse referents and makes consistent and robust use of possessive markers to manifest pragmatic identifiability/accessibility of the referents in the proposition.
Abstract
The paper addresses the issue of cohesive units in language at the level of grammatical inventory. Based on analysis of discourse-pragmatic functions and propositional-semantic content, I illustrate the continuity in formal morphosyntactic means available in the system that are used for organization and structuring of information, namely identifying topical information vs. new via elision, word order, agreement, case, voice, and possessive markers. Selected methodology includes contrastive contextual analysis, attending to the information structure, in the general cognitive-functional framework. Based on the analysis of the corpus data and elicited tokens it is posited that Eastern Khanty displays strong correlation of reduced morphological complexity to increased pragmatic status of the discourse referents and makes consistent and robust use of possessive markers to manifest pragmatic identifiability/accessibility of the referents in the proposition.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The editors vii
- The authors ix
- Preface xi
- Introduction xiii
- A deceptive case of split-intransitivity in Basque 1
- Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia 17
- Grammatical relations in a typology of agreement systems 37
- Causatives in Agul 55
- Continuity of information structuring strategies in Eastern Khanty 115
- Patterns of asymmetry in argument structure across languages 133
- Topic marking and the construction of narrative in Xibe 151
- On the hierarchy of structural convergence in the Amdo Sprachbund 177
- Pyramids of spatial relators in Northeastern Turkic and its neighbors 191
- What’s in the head of head-marking languages? 211
- Transitives, causatives and passives in Korean and Japanese 241
- Core argument patterns and deep genetic relations 257
- Three takes on grammatical relations 295
- On aspect, aspectual domain and quantification in Finnish and Udmurt 325
- Indexes 355
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The editors vii
- The authors ix
- Preface xi
- Introduction xiii
- A deceptive case of split-intransitivity in Basque 1
- Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia 17
- Grammatical relations in a typology of agreement systems 37
- Causatives in Agul 55
- Continuity of information structuring strategies in Eastern Khanty 115
- Patterns of asymmetry in argument structure across languages 133
- Topic marking and the construction of narrative in Xibe 151
- On the hierarchy of structural convergence in the Amdo Sprachbund 177
- Pyramids of spatial relators in Northeastern Turkic and its neighbors 191
- What’s in the head of head-marking languages? 211
- Transitives, causatives and passives in Korean and Japanese 241
- Core argument patterns and deep genetic relations 257
- Three takes on grammatical relations 295
- On aspect, aspectual domain and quantification in Finnish and Udmurt 325
- Indexes 355
