Subordination

by Sonia Cristofaro

Overview

This book presents a typology of subordination systems across the world's languages. Traditional definitions of subordination are based on morphosyntactic criteria, such as clausal embedding or non-finiteness. The book shows that these definitions are untenable in a cross-linguistic perspective, and provides a cognitively based definition of subordination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199252794
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/25/2003
Series:	Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	9.42(w) x 6.54(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sonia Cristofaro received her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pavia in 1998, and is now associate professor of Linguistics at the same university. Her main research areas include syntax, semantics and typology. Her publications include various articles on the syntax and semantics of complex sentences.

Table of Contents

List of tablesAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. Theoretical premises2. The notion of subordination3. The coding of subordination4. The cross-linguistic coding of subordination5. Complement relations6. Adverbial relations7. Relative relations8. Comparison of complement, adverbial, and relative relations9. The coding of subordination relations10. Correlations between individual morphosyntactic phenomena11. Conclusions and prospectsAppendicesBibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"The cross-linguistic analysis of aubordination presented in this book is, beyond a doubt, comprehensive, rigorous, carefully argued for and extensively documented. In addition , it is extremely well-written as well as user-friendly, avoiding unnecessary technicalities and presenting a priori complicated typological considerations in an accessible way. Last but not least, and doing full justice to the title of the series of which the present bookk forms part, Cristofaro shows how typology and linguistic theory can be insightfully combined to broaden the descriptive and explanatory perspectives on subordination expressed in the extensive formal and functional cognitive literature on the topic." —Folia Linguistica

"Impressive in its scope...this is an important study which is bound to stimulate further research on subordination."—Linguist List

From the Publisher