Download or read book A Grammar of Urarina written by Knut J. Olawsky and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 964 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urarina is an endangered isolate spoken by less than 3,000 people in the rainforests of North-western Peru. This book aims at providing a comprehensive description of Urarina grammar covering all areas of the language. From a linguistic point of view, Urarina is particularly interesting because of a range of unusual grammatical characteristics that are rarely or not at all found in other languages. One remarkable property is the constituent order OVA/VS, which was classified as "non-existing" by Greenberg (1966). However, this atypical syntactic structure is a surprisingly consistent feature of Urarina, which discerns it from the majority of languages which are assumed to follow this syntactic pattern. Another feature probably unique to Urarina is the existence of a three-way distinction for person marking on all verbs. The choice of the respective paradigm depends on a complex set of syntactic and pragmatic conditions, which are investigated in detail. Scholars whose main interest is in morphology will also be intrigued by the polysynthetic verbal morphology of Urarina, which fits well into the Amazonian context. A Grammar of Urarina is based on the framework of basic linguistic theory, which will be accessible to scholars from a wide range of backgrounds. The straightforward presentation of linguistic structures is accompanied by in-depth discussion of the most interesting and unusual features, illustrated by examples for all grammatical phenomena and often summarised by tables or diagrams. This book fills a gap not only for studies in Amazonian languages but also from a typological perspective.
Download or read book A Grammar of Aguaruna Iini Chicham written by Simon E. Overall and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a descriptive grammar of Aguaruna, known to its speakers as Iiniá Chicham, a Jivaroan language spoken by some 55,000 people in the northwest Peruvian Amazon. Aguaruna is typologically and historically significant because of its location in the eastern foothills of the Andes, right between the Andean and Amazonian linguistic areas. Some typologically unusual syntactic phenomena, for example in the areas of grammatical relations and case marking, make this description relevant beyond the areal context. This is the first full grammar of a Jivaroan language, covering phonology, morphology and syntax as well as addressing some issues in discourse structure. It is an important work for specialists in South American languages as well as for linguists working in more general typological fields.
Download or read book The Art of Grammar written by Aleksandr Aĭkhenvalʹd and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the principles and practice of writing a comprehensive reference grammar. Several thousand distinct languages are currently spoken across the globe, each with its own grammatical system and its own selection of diverse grammatical structures. Comprehensive reference grammars offer a basis for understanding linguistic diversity and can provide a unique perspective into the structure and social and cognitive underpinnings of different languages. Alexandra Aikhenvald describes the means of collecting, analysing, and organizing data for use in this type of grammar, and discusses the typological parameters that can be used to explore relationships with other languages. She considers how a grammar can made to reflect and bring to life the society of its speakers through background explanation and the judicious choice of examples, as well as by showing how its language, history, and culture are intertwined. She ends with a full glossary of terms and guidance for those wanting to explore a particular linguistic phenomenon or language family. The Art of Grammar is the ideal resource for students and teachers of linguistics, language studies, and inductively-oriented linguistic, cultural, and social anthropology.
Download or read book Syntax Theory and Analysis Volume 3 written by Tibor Kiss and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook represents the development of research and the current level of knowledge in the fields of syntactic theory and syntax analysis. Syntax can look back to a long tradition. Especially in the last 50 years, however, the interaction between syntactic theory and syntactic analysis has led to a rapid increase in analyses and theoretical suggestions. This second edition of the Handbook on Syntax adopts a unifying perspective and therefore does not place the division of syntactic theory into several schools to the fore, but the increase in knowledge resulting from the fruitful argumentations between syntactic analysis and syntactic theory. It uses selected phenomena of individual languages and their cross-linguistic realizations to explain what syntactic analyses can do and at the same time to show in what respects syntactic theories differ from each other. It investigates how syntax is related to neighbouring disciplines and investigate the role of the interfaces especially the relationship between syntax and phonology, morphology, compositional semantics, pragmatics, and the lexicon. The phenomena chosen bring together renowned experts in syntax, and represent the consensus reached as to what has to be considered as an important as well as illustrative syntactic phenomenon. The phenomena discuss do not only serve to show syntactic analyses, but also to compare theoretical approaches with each other.
Download or read book Language Isolates II Kano to Yurakar written by Patience Epps and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-01-30 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The series Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science is designed to illuminate a field which not only includes general linguistics and the study of linguistics as applied to specific languages, but also covers those more recent areas which have developed from the increasing body of research into the manifold forms of communicative action and interaction.
Download or read book Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 2 written by R. M. W. Dixon and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2010 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon provides a comprehensive guide to the nature of human languages and their description and analysis. The books are a one-stop text for undergraduate and graduate students, the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's immersion in every aspect of language, and a lasting monument to innovative scholarship.
Download or read book Participles written by Ksenia Shagal and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is the first large-scale typological study of participles, based on data from more than 100 languages. Its main aim is to model the diversity of non-finite verb forms involved in adnominal modification. Participles are examined with respect to several morphological and syntactic parameters, and are shown to be a versatile cross-linguistic category. The book is of interest to language typologists and descriptive linguists.
Download or read book Spatial Interrogatives in Europe and Beyond written by Thomas Stolz and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extant generalizations about the grammar of space rely heavily on the analyses of declarative sentences. There is a need to check whether these generalizations also hold in the domain of interrogation. To this end this book analyzes data from some 450 languages (including non-standard varieties). The focus is on paradigms of spatial interrogatives such as English where, whither and whence and their internal organization. These paradigms are checked for recurrent patterns of morphological mismatches (such as syncretism) and different degrees of complexity (e.g. the number of segments). The data-base consists of a large parallel literary corpus (Le petit prince and translations thereof) which is complemented by further sources of information such as descriptive grammars. The data are analyzed from a synchronic perspective. However, diachronic issues are addressed unsystematically, too. It is shown that the distribution of phenomena which characterize paradigms of spatial interrogatives are subject to areal-linguistic factors. This is the first typological study of spatial interrogatives. It provides new insights for students of the grammar of space, morphological paradigms, and language typology.
Download or read book Voice syncretism written by Nicklas N. Bahrt and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive typological account of voice syncretism, focusing on resemblance in formal verbal marking between two or more of the following seven voices: passives, antipassives, reflexives, reciprocals, anticausatives, causatives, and applicatives. It covers voice syncretism from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and has been structured in a manner that facilitates convenient access to information about specific patterns of voice syncretism, their distribution and development. The book is based on a survey of voice syncretism in 222 geographically and genealogically diverse languages, but also thoroughly revisits previous research on the phenomenon. Voice syncretism is approached systematically by establishing and exploring patterns of voice syncretism that can logically be posited for the seven voices of focus in the book: 21 simplex patterns when one considers two of the seven voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal syncretism), and 99 complex patterns when one considers more than two of the voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal-anticausative syncretism). In a similar vein, 42 paths of development can logically be posited if it is assumed that voice marking in each of the seven voices can potentially develop one of the other six voice functions (e.g. reflexive voice marking developing a reciprocal function). This approach enables the discussion of both voice syncretism that has received considerable attention in the literature (notably middle syncretism involving the reflexive, reciprocal, anticausative and/or passive voices) and voice syncretism that has received little or not treatment in the past (including seemingly contradictory patterns such as causative-anticausative and passive-antipassive syncretism). In the survey almost all simplex patterns are attested in addition to seventeen complex patterns. In terms of diachrony, evidence is presented and discussed for twenty paths of development. The book strives to highlight the variation found in voice syncretism across the world’s languages and encourage further research into the phenomenon.
Download or read book Modality and Subordinators written by Jackie Nordstrom and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book connects two linguistic phenomena, modality and subordinators, so that both are seen in a new light, each adding to the understanding of the other. It argues that general subordinators (or complementizers) denote propositional modality (otherwise expressed by moods such as the indicative-subjunctive and epistemic-evidential modal markers). The book explores the hypothesis both on a cross-linguistic and on a language-branch specific level (the Germanic languages). One obvious connection between the indicative-subjunctive distinction and subordinators is that the former is typically manifested in subordinate clauses. Furthermore, both the indicative-subjunctive and subordinators determine clause types. More importantly, however, it is shown, through data from various languages, that subordinators themselves often denote the indicative-subjunctive distinction. In the Germanic languages, there is variation in many clause types between both the indicative and the subjunctive and "that" and "if "depending on the speaker s and/or the subject s certainty of the truth of the proposition."
Download or read book Under a Watchful Eye written by Harry Walker and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this beautifully written study of Urarina mastery of life, Walker demonstrates the continued importance of careful ethnographic attention to historically emergent forms of subjectivity. Walker's perceptive attention to social values and organising principles helps us understand how the Urarina transcend predation, identity and difference. We are transported to the heart of a society both more individualising and more communalist than the ones we have grown up in."—Laura Rival, author of Trekking through history: The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador>/i> "A celebration of Urarina understandings of the individual and the social world, Under a Watchful Eye unveils the many paradoxes of native Amazonian sociality. Well-written and finely crafted, the book critically engages with issues raised by perspectivism, incorporation theory, and constructional approaches, proposing novel and stimulating insights on indigenous notions of living well."—Fernando Santos-Granero, author of Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life "This book is based on the sensitive and multi-layered ethnography which only real, long-term participant observation can produce. We are convinced by detailed supporting evidence and never lost, as is the case for some Amazonian ethnography, in formulations, which having acquired an academic life of their own, seem impossibly remote from the experience of shared human practice."—Maurice Bloch, author of How We Think They Think: Anthropological Studies in Cognition, Memory and Literacy
Download or read book A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond written by Andreas Hölzl and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2018-08-29 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigates the distribution of linguistic and specifically structural diversity in Northeast Asia (NEA), defined as the region north of the Yellow River and east of the Yenisei. In particular, it analyzes what is called the grammar of questions (GQ), i.e., those aspects of any given language that are specialized for asking questions or regularly combine with these. The bulk of the study is a bottom-up description and comparison of GQs in the languages of NEA. The addition of the phrase and beyond to the title of this study serves two purposes. First, languages such as Turkish and Chuvash are included, despite the fact that they are spoken outside of NEA, since they have ties to (or even originated in) the region. Second, despite its focus on one area, the typology is intended to be applicable to other languages as well. Therefore, it makes extensive use of data from languages outside of NEA. The restriction to one category is necessary for reasons of space and clarity, and the process of zooming in on one region allows a higher resolution and historical accuracy than is usually the case in linguistic typology. The discussion mentions over 450 languages and dialects from NEA and beyond and gives about 900 glossed examples. The aim is to achieve both a cross-linguistically plausible typology and a maximal resolution of the linguistic diversity of Northeast Asia.
Download or read book Serial Verbs written by Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd and published by Oxford Studies in Typology and. This book was released on 2018 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth typological account of the forms, functions, and histories of serial verb constructions, in which several verbs combine to form a single predicate. It uses an inductively-based framework for the analysis and draws on data from languages with different typological profiles and genetic affiliations.
Download or read book Theoretical Approaches to Disharmonic Word Order written by Theresa Biberauer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title considers whether any generalisations can be made about word order in language. The chapters, written by international scholars, draw on data from several 'disharmonic' and typologically distinct languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Basque, French, English, Hixkaryana (a Cariban language), Khalkha Mongolian, Uyghur Turkic, and Afrikaans.
Download or read book Switch Reference 2 0 written by Rik van Gijn and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Switch reference is a grammatical process that marks a referential relationship between arguments of two (or more) verbs. Typically it has been characterized as an inflection pattern on the verb itself, encoding identity or non-identity between subject arguments separately from traditional person or number marking. In the 50 years since William Jacobsen’s coinage of the term, switch reference has evolved from an exotic phenomenon found in a handful of lesser-known languages to a widespread feature found in geographically and linguistically unconnected parts of the world. The growing body of information on the topic raises new theoretical and empirical questions about the development, functions, and nature of switch reference, as well as the internal variation between different switch-reference systems. The contributions to this volume discuss these and other questions for a wide variety of languages from all over the world, and endevaour to demonstrate the full functional and morphosyntactic range of the phenomenon.
Download or read book Communicative Efficiency written by Natalia Levshina and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-17 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All living beings try to save effort, and humans are no exception. This groundbreaking book shows how we save time and energy during communication by unconsciously making efficient choices in grammar, lexicon and phonology. It presents a new theory of 'communicative efficiency', the idea that language is designed to be as efficient as possible, as a system of communication. The new framework accounts for the diverse manifestations of communicative efficiency across a typologically broad range of languages, using various corpus-based and statistical approaches to explain speakers' bias towards efficiency. The author's unique interdisciplinary expertise allows her to provide rich evidence from a broad range of language sciences. She integrates diverse insights from over a hundred years of research into this comprehensible new theory, which she presents step-by-step in clear and accessible language. It is essential reading for language scientists, cognitive scientists and anyone interested in language use and communication.
Download or read book Language at Large written by Alexandra Aikhenvald and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-07-27 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume brings together important essays on syntax and semantics by Aikhenvald and Dixon. It focusses on topics in linguistic typology, the analysis of previously undescribed languages and issues in the grammar and lexicography of English.
