The result of over five years of close collaboration among an international group of leading typologists within the EUROTYP program, this volume is about the morphology and syntax of the noun phrase. Particular attention is being paid to nominal inflectional categories and inflectional systems and to the syntax of determination, modification, and conjunction. Its areal focus, like that of other EUROTYP volumes, is on the languages of Europe; but in order to appreciate what is peculiarly European about their noun phrases, a more comprehensive and genuinely typological view is being taken at the full range of cross-linguistic variation within this structural domain. There has been no shortage lately of contributions to the theory of noun phrase structure; the present volume is, however, unique in the extent to which its theorizing is empirically grounded.

This is part of a series of nine volumes publishing the results of the research project "Typology of Languages in Europe" (EUROTYP)--based on a 1988 workshop by the Standing Committee for the Humanities, the European Science Foundation, and involving participation by more than 100 linguists. The major goal of EUROTY was to study the cross-linguistic patterns and limitations of variation in nine focal areas: pragmatic organization of discourse, constituent order, subordination and complementation, adverbial constructions, tense and aspect, noun phrase structure, clitics, and word prosodic systems in the languages of Europe. This effort provided a testing ground for theoretical controversies and new theory development, as detailed here by a dozen contributors. Includes a language index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

One of the recurrent questions in historical linguistics is to what extent languages can borrow grammar from other languages. It seems for instance hardly likely that each 'average European' language developed a definite article all by itself, without any influence from neighbouring languages. It is, on the other hand, by no means clear what exactly was borrowed, since the way in which definiteness is expressed differs greatly among the various Germanic and Romance languages and dialects. One of the main aims of this volume is to shed some light on the question of what is similar and what is different in the structure of the noun phrase of the various Romance and Germanic languages and dialects, and what causes this similarity or difference.

The volume is a collection of papers reporting the results of investigations on the interaction of discourse and sentence structure in the languages of Europe. The subjects discussed in the book include: morphosyntactic characteristics of spontaneous spoken texts; different patterns of word order in a pragmatic perspective; the coding of the pragmatic functions topic and focus in sentences with non-canonical word orders (e.g. dislocations, clefts); the range of functions of verb-subject order in declarative clauses and the notion of theticity; prosodic patterns of de-accenting of given information; deixis and anaphora; coding of definiteness and article systems. The book provides the empirical basis for the comparative survey of major phenomena found in the languages of Europe which have pragmatic relevance. Beside traditional areas of investigation at the interface between syntax and pragmatics such as dislocations, new areas are explored, such as the prosody of given information. Data are considered within a functional-typological approach.

Crosslinguistic Studies on Noun Phrase Structure and Reference contains 11 studies on the grammar of noun phrases. Part One explores NP-structure and the impact of information structure, countability and number marking on interpretation, using data from Russian, Armenian, Hebrew, Brazilian Portuguese, Karitiana, Turkish, English, Catalan and Danish. Part Two examines language specific definiteness marking strategies in spoken and signed languages—differentiated definiteness marking in Germanic, double definiteness in Greek, adnominal demonstratives in Japanese, ‘weak’ definiteness in Martiniké and the special referring options made avilable by signing. Part Three examines the second-language acquisition of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language acquisition. Contributors include: Željko Bošković, Patricia Cabredo Hofherr, Edit Doron, Nomi Erteschik Shir, Brigitte Garcia, Elaine Grolla, Tania Ionin, Loïc Jean-Louis, Makoto Kaneko, Marika Lekakou, Silvina Montrul, Ana Müller, Asya Pereltsvaig, Marie-Anne Sallandre, Helade Santos, Serkan Şener, Rebekka Studler, Kriszta Szendröi, Anne Zribi-Hertz.

In The Morphosyntax of the Noun Phrase in Hieroglyphic Luwian Anna H. Bauer provides a full and detailed account of the noun phrases in Hieroglyphic Luwian, an Anatolian language attested mainly in inscriptions from the first millennium BC. The available material is analysed according to the different elements found in the NP, and a chapter each is devoted to determination, quantification, modification and apposition. Along with discussing the structures from a synchronic point of view, Anna Bauer also draws parallels to neighbouring languages and ongoing changes within HLuwian itself. It is shown how other languages have left their mark on HLuwian and how that influences the HLuwian system.

The series is a platform for contributions of all kinds to this rapidly developing field. General problems are studied from the perspective of individual languages, language families, language groups, or language samples. Conclusions are the result of a deepened study of empirical data. Special emphasis is given to little-known languages, whose analysis may shed new light on long-standing problems in general linguistics.

The structure of the noun phrase in Ancient Greek is extremely flexible: the various constituents may occur in almost every possible order and each constituent may or may not be preceded by an article. However, the use and function of the various options have received very little attention. This book tries to fill that gap. A functional analysis of the structure of the NP in Herodotus illucidateswhich arguments lead a native speaker in his choice to select one of the various possible NP patterns. The results do not only increase our knowledge of the NP, but also lead to a better interpretation of Ancient Greek texts.

One of the recurrent questions in historical linguistics is to what extent languages can borrow grammar from other languages. It seems for instance hardly likely that each 'average European' language developed a definite article all by itself, without any influence from neighbouring languages. It is, on the other hand, by no means clear what exactly was borrowed, since the way in which definiteness is expressed differs greatly among the various Germanic and Romance languages and dialects. One of the main aims of this volume is to shed some light on the question of what is similar and what is different in the structure of the noun phrase of the various Romance and Germanic languages and dialects, and what causes this similarity or difference.