Applicative Constructions in the World’s Languages

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Applicative Constructions in the World’s Languages is written by Fernando Zuniga and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 3110730952 (ISBN 10) and 9783110730951 (ISBN 13).

This book presents a state-of-the-art cross-linguistic survey of applicative constructions in the functional-typological tradition. An introductory section sets the terminological and analytical stage, presents the methodology used by the different chapters, and provides a typological outlook. The individual contributions address the morphological, syntactic and semantic variation of applicatives, as well as their discourse-pragmatic function. They cover all major language families and some isolates that feature some illuminating version of the phenomenon, paying special attention to language-internal variation and unity. The phenomena surveyed range from those instances usually considered canonical (valency-increasing, syntactically and semantically predictable, productive, dedicated, and optional) to those occasionally understudied in descriptive works and frequently neglected in comparative studies (valency-neutral, rather unpredictable, lexicalized, syncretic, and/or obligatory).