TY - BOOK ID - 607509 TI - Ergativity in Amazonia AU - Gildea, Spike AU - Queixalós, Francesc PY - 2010 VL - 89 SN - 9789027206701 9789027288509 902728850X 9027206708 1282558692 9786612558696 PB - Amsterdam Philadelphia, Pa. John Benjamins Pub. Co. DB - UniCat KW - South American Indian languages KW - Grammar KW - Amazon Valey KW - Grammar, Comparative and general KW - Indians of South America KW - Ergative constructions. KW - Languages. KW - Amazon Valley KW - American aborigines KW - American Indians KW - Indigenous peoples KW - Ergative (Linguistics) KW - Ethnology KW - Ergative case KW - Case KW - Syntax KW - Linguistics KW - Philology UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:607509 AB - This volume presents a typological/theoretical introduction plus eight papers about ergative alignment in 16 Amazonian languages. All are written by linguists with years of fieldwork and comparative experience in the region, all describe details of the synchronic systems, and several also provide diachronic insight into the evolution of these systems. The five papers in Part I focus on languages from four larger families with ergative patterns primarily in morphology. The typological contribution is in detailed consideration of unusual splits, changes in ergative patterns, and parallels between ergative main clauses and nominalizations. The three papers in Part II discuss genetically isolated languages. Two present dominant ergative patterns in both morphology and syntax, the other a syntactic inverse system that is predominantly ergative in discourse. In each, the authors demonstrate that identification of traditional grammatical relations is problematic. These data will figure in all future typological and theoretical debates about grammatical relations. ER -