Linguistics of Vietnamese: An International Survey (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM], 253)

The present collection of articles grew out of a workshop on Vietnamese linguistics in 2009 at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. To our knowledge, no workshop with a comparable scope has been held outside of Vietnam for the past 20 years, or even longer. Given the important typological status of Vietnamese as a paradigm case of an isolating language, the volume covers the most relevant fields in linguistics: syntax, semantics, phonology, and the lexicon. A guiding principle in assembling the chapters for this volume has been to take an inclusive stance as far as the commitment to different frameworks and research methodologies is concerned. All the contributors are proponents of recent developments in their individual areas of specialization. The editors have taken special care to cater for a readership which should be as broad as possible. This means that each contribution is self-contained and does not presuppose any knowledge of Vietnamese. The volume is recommended to general linguistis, comparative linguists, typologists and to researchers specializing in languages of East and South East Asia. Preface 5 Introduction 9 I Phonology/Phonetics 15 1 The cross-dialectal perception of Vietnamese tones: Indexicality and convergence 17 2 Prosodic means in repair initiation as an activity in Northern Vietnamese conversation 43 II Noun phrase syntax 63 3 The Vietnamese noun phrase 65 4 Vietnamese classifier phrases from the perspective of how children acquire them 95 III Clausal and verb phrase syntax 133 5 Head-First: On the head-initiality of Vietnamese clauses 135 6 Vietnamese and the typology of passive constructions 163 7 Serial verbs and caused change of location constructions in Vietnamese 193 IV Pronouns and minor word classes 223 8 Wh-phrases as indefinites: A Vietnamese perspective 225 9 On conjunction and comitativity in Vietnamese 251 10 Focus particles and related entities in Vietnamese 273 Index 313 Main description: This volume, the first of its kind, is an international survey of linguistic research into Vietnamese. Vietnamese, one of the major languages of South East Asia, is considered a particularly interesting case of an isolating language among linguists of different persuasions. Up-to-date information in print about its linguistic system which is both detailed and covers a broad range of topics has been unavailable. The book strives to fill this gap