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book: Non-verbal Predication in the World’s Languages
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Non-verbal Predication in the World’s Languages

A Typological Survey Volume 1: Eurasia, North America, South America
  • Edited by: Pier Marco Bertinetto , Luca Ciucci and Denis Creissels
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2026
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About this book

The notion of predication is usually associated with the lexical class of verbs. However, the predicate function may also be expressed by Noun / Adjective / Adverb / Quantifier Phrases:

a. John is a doctor. b. The man is old. c. The boys are in the garden. d. Sam's friends are many.

Natural languages do, with respect to non-verbal predication, what they are expected to do in any compartment of grammar: they sharply diverge in their behavior.
This book offers a wide typological overview of how languages deal with non-verbal predication (henceforth: NVP). After the pioneering works by Hengeveld (1992) and Stassen (1997), no other work has attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of this pervasive syntactic phenomenon. Hence, the need for this book.
The introductory chapter highlights the main features to be considered:

  • the lexical and morphosyntactic nature of the predicate.
  • the morphological expression of NVP.
  • the semantic types of NVP.

The bulk of the book consists of a collection of papers, written by well-known specialists, targeting different languages or language families, thus offering a rich array of typological data.
This book will be of interest to typologists, syntacticians of any theoretical creed, and students of linguistics at large.

Author / Editor information

Pier Marco Bertinetto, Pisa, Italy; Luca Ciucci, Passau, Germany; Denis Creissels, Lyon, France.

Supplementary Materials


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I

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V

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IX
Part I: Setting the stage

Denis Creissels, Pier Marco Bertinetto and Luca Ciucci
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1

Caterina Mauri and Andrea Sansò
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57

Denis Creissels, Pier Marco Bertinetto and Luca Ciucci
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87
Part II: Case studies

Shanshan Lü and Hilary Chappell
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91

Yunfan Lai
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129

Rigina Ajanki and Johanna Laakso
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155

Elisabetta Ragagnin
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195

Brigitte Pakendorf
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239

Brigitte Pakendorf
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275
North America

Marianne Mithun and Carl Christian Olsen
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313

Willem J. de Reuse
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353

Fernando Zúñiga
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385

David Beck
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429

Zarina Estrada-Fernández and Albert Alvarez Gonzalez
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463
South America

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
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505

Wolf Dietrich
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541

Lev Michael and Christine Beier
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581

Simon E. Overall
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625

Pilar M. Valenzuela and Roberto Zariquiey
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653

Alejandra Vidal and Verónica Nercesian
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697

Luca Ciucci
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743

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 3, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9783110730982
Hardcover planned publication:
November 3, 2025
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110736328
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
14
Main content:
784
Illustrations:
22
Coloured Illustrations:
5
Tables:
65
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