Case and Agreement in Abaza (Sil International and the University of Texas at Arlington P #138)

Description

Abaza, a little-documented Northwest Caucasian language, exhibits an extensive agreement system. This book, the result of field work carried out by Brian O'Herin, is both descriptive and analytical. As a descriptive work, it provides thorough coverage of a significant subsystem of Abaza grammar--the agreement system. Abaza exhibits morphological agreement between a noun and its possessor, between a postposition and its object, and between a verb and virtually all verbal arguments, resulting in multiple agreement relationships. As an analytical work, Case and Agreement in Abaza provides a unified analysis of the agreement system within the theory of Principles and Parameters, demonstrating how a variety of structures (causative, applicative, inverted, etc.) can be accounted for within a single simple analysis. O'Herin's work is valuable for those interested in descriptions of languages of the Caucasus, as well as for syntacticians, particularly those interested in agreement systems and ergativity.