The polyfunctionality of 'still' expressions

Download or read book The polyfunctionality of 'still' expressions written by Bastian Persohn and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2024-06-28 with total page 783 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expressions from the semasiological domain of phasal polarity (ʻstillʼ, ʻalreadyʼ, etc.) tend to be highly polyfunctional, with their various uses often extending into a wide range of other linguistic domains, both time-related and non-temporal. Yet these patterns have hitherto been investigated mostly for individual languages or smaller groups. This volume presents the first ever larger-scale survey of the numerous functions of expressions whose meanings include the notion of ʻstill’, making use of a global sample of 76 varieties from 45 distinct phyla. It is aimed at semanticists, typologists and descriptive grammarians alike.