Morphosyntax: Constructions of the World's Languages (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

By: William Croft

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Synopsis: Bringing together the results of sixty years of research in typology and universals, this textbook presents a comprehensive survey of Morphosyntax - the combined study of syntax and morphology. Languages employ extremely diverse morphosyntactic strategies for expressing functions, and Croft provides a comprehensive functional framework to account for the full range of these constructions in the world's languages. The book explains analytical concepts that serve as a basis for cross-linguistic comparison, and provides a rich source of descriptive data that can be analysed within a range of theories. The functional framework is useful to linguists documenting endangered languages, and those writing reference grammars and other descriptive materials. Each technical term is comprehensively explained, and cross-referenced to related terms, at the end of each chapter and in an online glossary. This is an essential resource on Morphosyntax for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and linguistic fieldworkers.