Markedness and Language Change: The Romani Sample

Viktor Elšik; Yaron Matras

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2006

Markedness and Language Change

The Romani Sample

Viktor Elšik and Yaron Matras

Volume 32 in the series Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110197594

Overview
Contents

About this book

'Markedness' is a central notion in linguistic theory. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of markedness relations across various grammatical categories, in a sample of closely-related speech varieties. It is based on a sample of over 100 dialects of Romani, collected and processed via the Romani Morpho-Syntax (RMS) Database - a comparative grammatical outline in electronic form, constructed by the authors between 2000-2004. Romani dialects provide an exciting sample of language change phenomena: they are oral languages, which have been separated and dispersed from some six centuries, and are strongly shaped by the influence of diverse contact languages.

The book takes a typological approach to markedness, viewing it as a hierarchy among values that is conditioned by conceptual and cognitive universals. But it introduces a functional-pragmatic notion of markedness, as a grammaticalised strategy employed in order to priositise information. In what is referred to as 'dynamic', such prioritisation is influenced by an interplay of factors: the values within a category and the conceptual notions that they represent, the grammatical structure onto which the category values are mapped, and the kind of strategy that is applied in order to prioritise certain value. Consequently, the book contains a thorough survey of some 20 categories (e.g Person, Number, Gender, and so on) and their formal representation in various grammatical structures across the sample. The various accepted criteria for markedness (e.g. Complexity, Differentiation, Erosion, and so on) are examined systematically in relation to the values of each and every category, for each relevant structure. The outcome is a novel picture of how different markedness criteria may cluster for certain categories, giving a concrete reality to the hitherto rather vague notion of markedness. Borrowing and its relation to markedness is also examined, offering new insights into the motivations behind contact-induced change.

Author / Editor information

Viktor Elšik teaches at the Univerzita Karlova, Prague, Czech Republic.

Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, UK.

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Chapter 1 Introduction: Markedness and asymmetry in language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2 The Markedness Hypothesis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
Chapter 3 Toward a communication-based model of asymmetry in language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
Chapter 4 The sample: Methodological considerations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Chapter 5 Early Romani Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
Chapter 6 Number Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Chapter 7 Person Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Chapter 8 Gender Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Chapter 9 Degree Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Chapter 10 Negation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
Chapter 11 Cardinality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
Chapter 12 Discreteness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Chapter 13 Tense, aspect, and mood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Chapter 14 Modality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Chapter 15 Transitivity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Chapter 16 Case and case roles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	218
Chapter 17 Localisation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Chapter 18 Orientation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Chapter 19 Indefiniteness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
Chapter 20 Ontological category Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
Chapter 21 Lexicality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	312
Chapter 22 Associativity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	322
Chapter 23 Chronological compartmentalisation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
Chapter 24 Criteria for asymmetry and their distribution across categories Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	334
Chapter 25 Patterns of asymmetry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	347
Chapter 26 Conceptual motivations for asymmetry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377
Chapter 27 Concluding remarks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	406
Backmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	410

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Research Libraries, Researchers and Advanced Students of Linguistics (Language Typology, Historical Linguistics).
Pages
- Front matter: 23
- Main content: 475
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
- Other: Numerous tab. 2 maps
Keywords: Romani language; Markedness; Language Change

eBook

Published: August 22, 2008
ISBN: 9783110197594

Hardcover

Published: February 21, 2006
ISBN: 9783110184525