Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface

This edited book seeks to bridge a gap in the existing literature on nouns, by exploringthe exact relationship between their formal and semantic characteristics. The introductory chapter offers a thorough state of the art on the morphosyntactic andsemantic angles in definitions of nouns, providesevidence of misalignments between morphosyntactic and semantic features, and argues that amulti-criterial angle is in fact inherent in the definition of the class of nouns. The following chaptersbring together a representative cross-section of international-level researchon the morphosyntax/semantics interface for nouns, covering a wide variety of languages fromFrench-based creoles, German and Japanese toEnglish, French, Italian, Russian and Uzbek.The focus of the volume is to take a special focus on the currently underestimated dynamic interplay betweenmorphosyntax and semantics, at both language and discourse levels. It will beof interest primarily to academics (specialists of nouns, as well as anyone interested in the interplay between morphology, syntax and semantics) andgraduate students in areas such assyntax, semantics,morphology, theoretical linguistics and discourse analysis.