"When stones falls": a conceptual-functional account of subject-verb agreement in Persian

@article{citeulike:2134391, abstract = {Most linguistic studies of subject-verb agreement have thus far attempted to account for this phenomenon in terms of either syntax or semantics. Kim (2004) [Kim, J., 2004. Hybrid agreement in English. Linguistics 42 (6), 1105-1128] proposes a `hybrid analysis', which allows for a morphosyntactic agreement and a semantic agreement within the same sentence. In this paper we propose that conceptual-functional views of language may provide a powerful and complementary approach to the `hybrid analysis' approach. Drawing on data from subject-verb agreement in Persian, we show how the choice between plural and singular verb endings may reflect a speaker's construal of an event. In particular it appears that the construal resolution/level of schematicity has a bearing on subject-verb agreement patterns. It is argued that linguistic devices that are often described as `optional' in descriptive grammars may in fact be motivated and sensitive to conceptualisation of experience.}, author = {Sharifian, Farzad and Lotfi, Ahmad R. }, citeulike-article-id = {2134391}, doi = {10.1016/j.langsci.2007.05.001}, journal = {Language Sciences}, keywords = {syntactic-variation, theres}, month = {November}, number = {6}, pages = {787--803}, posted-at = {2007-12-17 01:41:54}, priority = {1}, title = {"When stones falls": a conceptual-functional account of subject-verb agreement in Persian}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2007.05.001}, volume = {29}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2134391 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2134391 TI - "When stones falls": a conceptual-functional account of subject-verb agreement in Persian JF - Language Sciences VL - 29 IS - 6 SP - 787 EP - 803 N2 - Most linguistic studies of subject-verb agreement have thus far attempted to account for this phenomenon in terms of either syntax or semantics. Kim (2004) [Kim, J., 2004. Hybrid agreement in English. Linguistics 42 (6), 1105-1128] proposes a `hybrid analysis', which allows for a morphosyntactic agreement and a semantic agreement within the same sentence. In this paper we propose that conceptual-functional views of language may provide a powerful and complementary approach to the `hybrid analysis' approach. Drawing on data from subject-verb agreement in Persian, we show how the choice between plural and singular verb endings may reflect a speaker's construal of an event. In particular it appears that the construal resolution/level of schematicity has a bearing on subject-verb agreement patterns. It is argued that linguistic devices that are often described as `optional' in descriptive grammars may in fact be motivated and sensitive to conceptualisation of experience. KW - syntactic-variation KW - theres AU - Sharifian, Farzad AU - Lotfi, Ahmad PY - 2007/11// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2007.05.001 ER -