Full Description
Especially in functional-typological linguistics, semantic roles have been studied thoroughly, because they constitute a good starting point for any study on argument marking due to their semantically defined nature. However, the very concept of semantic roles is far from being without problems, and there is still no consensus on how the roles are best defined. In this volume, the notion will be discussed from novel perspectives with the aim of providing new insights into our understanding of semantic roles. Two of the papers deal with semantic role clusters, one with semantic roles in verbless constructions, one with diachrony of semantic roles and two with individual semantic roles that have not been studied in too much detail in previous studies. The book may not offer answers to all questions the readers may have, but at least it raises interesting further questions relevant to arriving at a better understanding of semantic roles.
Originally published in Studies in Language Vol. 38:3 (2014).
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. Recent developments and open questions in the field of semantic roles (by Kittila, Seppo); 3. Identifying semantic role clusters and alignment types via microrole coexpression tendencies (by Hartmann, Iren); 4. Semantic role clustering: An empirical assessment of semantic role types in non-default case assignment (by Bickel, Balthasar); 5. Semantic roles and verbless constructions: A Finnish challenge for verb-centered approaches (by Vasti, Katja); 6. Benefaction proper and surrogation (by Zuniga, Fernando); 7. Exploring a diachronic (re)cycle of roles: The Dative complex from Latin to Romance (by Fedriani, Chiara); 8. Functive phrases in typological and diachronic perspective (by Creissels, Denis); 9. Language index; 10. Subject index
