Description
Book SynopsisThis Handbook provides a comprehensive account of current research on case and the morphological and syntactic phenomena associated with it. The semantic roles and grammatical relations indicated by case are fundamental to the whole system of language and have long been a central concern of descriptive and theoretical linguistics. The book opens with the editors'' synoptic overview of the main lines of research in the field, which sets out the main issues, challenges, and debates. Some sixty scholars from all over the world then report on the state of play in theoretical, typological, diachronic, and psycholinguistic research. They assess cross-linguistic work on case and case-systems and evaluate a variety of theoretical approaches. They examine current issues and debates from historical, areal, socio-linguistic, and psycholinguistic perspectives. The final part of the book consists of a set of overviews of case systems representative of some of the world''s major language families. T
Trade ReviewA coherent, well-structured and useful collection of authoritative overview articles as well as many specific studies ... The overview articles of the individual parts are state-of-the-art, the great majority of the topic-specific papers are helpful introductions to voluminous literatures and/or complex issues, and the language-specific studies will be valuable sources of reference for years to come. * Fernando Zúñiga, Studies in Language *
...anyone who wishes to understand the phenomenon of case from any point of view will find something of interest... * Leofranc Holford-Stevens, London Review of Books *
The Oxford Handbook of Case (despite occasional, mainly technical, flaws) measures up to the most exacting standards and could serve in many respects as a model for handbooks of this sort. It will undoubtedly prove an invaluable resource not only to professional linguists but particularly to a very wide circle of students. * Voprosy Jazykoznanija *
Table of ContentsPART I: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CASE; PART II: MORPHOLOGY OF CASE; PART III: SYNTAX OF CASE; PART IV: CASE IN (PSYCHO)LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINES; PART V: AREAL AND DIACHRONIC ISSUES; PART VI: INDIVIDUAL CASES: CROSS-LINGUISTIC OVERVIEWS; PART VII: SKETCHES OF CASE SYSTEMS