Little Words is an interdisciplinary examination of the functions and change in the use of clitics, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, discourse particles, auxiliary/light verbs, prepositions, and other “little words” that have played a central role in linguistic theory and in language acquisition research. Leading scholars present advanced research in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse function, historical development, variation, and acquisition by children and adults.
This unique volume integrates the views and findings of these different research areas into one professional source to be used within and across disciplines. Languages studied include English, Spanish, French, Romanian, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Slavonic, and Medieval Leonese.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
Ronald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere
Part I: History
2. From "Two" to "Both": Historical Changes in the Syntax and Meaning of Oba in Slavic
Agnieszka Łazorczyk and Roumyana Pancheva
3. When Small Worlds Collide: Morphological Reduction and Phonological Compensation in Old Leonese Contractions
Minta Elsman and D. Eric Holt
Part II: Phonology
4. Distinguishing Function Words from Content Words in Children's Oral Reading
Carol Lord, Robert Berdan, and Michael Fender
5. Motivating Floating Quantifiers
Lisa Rochman
Part III: Syntax
6. Applicative Phrases Hosting Accusative Clitics
Luis Sáez
7.The Little DE of Degree Constructions
Remus Gergel
8. The Complementizer The
Heather Lee Taylor
9. What is There When Little Words Are Not There?: Possible Implications for Evolutionary Studies
Ljiljana Progovac
10. Spanish Personal a and the Antidative
Omar Velázquez-Mendoza and Raúl Aranovich
Part IV: Semantics
11.Predicting Argument Realization from Oblique Marker Semantics
John Beavers
12. Aspect Selectors, Scales, and Contextual Operators: An Analysis of by Temporal Adjuncts
Michael F. Thomas and Laura A. Michaelis
13. Distributive Effects of the Plural Marker -tul in Korean
Jong Un Park
Part V: Pragmatics
14. The Pragmatics of the French Discourse Markers donc and alors
Stéphanie Pellet
15. "Little Words" in Small Talk: Some Considerations on the Use of the Pragmatic Markers man in English and macho/tío in Peninsular Spanish
Laura Alba-Juez
16. Little Words that Could Impact One's Impression on Others: Greetings and Closings in Institutional Emails
Sigrun Biesenbach-Lucas
Part VI: Acquisition
17. Instructed L2 Acquisition of Differential Object Marking in Spanish
Melissa Bowles and Silvina Montrul
18. The Role of Pedagogical Tasks and Focus on Form in Acquisition of Discourse Markers by Advanced Language Learners
Maria José de la Fuente
19. Article Acquisition in English, German, Norwegian, and Swedish
Tanja Kupisch, Merete Anderssen, Ute Bohnacker, and Neal Snape
20. A Continuum in French Children's Surface Realization of Auxiliaries
Christina D. Dye
Contributors
Laura Alba-Juez Merete Anderssen Raúl Aranovich John Beavers Robert Berdan Sigrun Biesenbach-Lucas Ute Bohnacker Melissa A. Bowles Héctor Campos Maria José de la Fuente Christina D. Dye Minta Elsman Michael Fender Remus Gergel D. Eric Holt Tanja Kupisch Donna Lardiere Agnieszka Łazorczyk Ronald P. Leow Carol Lord Laura A. Michaelis Silvina Montrul Roumyana Pancheva Jong Un Park Stéphanie Pellet Ljiljana Progovac Lisa Rochman Luis Sáez Neil Snape Heather Lee Taylor Michael F. Thomas Omar Velázquez-Mendoza
Awards
Congratulations to Ronald Leow! He has been awarded the 2008 AATSP Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award in the college/university category.
About the Author
Ronald P. Leow is an associate professor of Spanish applied linguistics and director of Spanish Language Instruction at Georgetown University.
Héctor Campos is an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, linguistics, and modern Greek at Georgetown University.
Donna Lardiere is an associate professor of linguistics at Georgetown University.
