Download or read book Agreement in Language Contact written by Florian Dolberg and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-06-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender in English changed dramatically from the elaborate system found in Old English to the very simple he/she/it-alternation in use from (late) Middle English onwards. While either system is well described and understood, the change from one to the other is anything but: more than 120 years of research into the matter provided no prevailing opinion – let alone a consensus – regarding how it proceeded or why it occurred. The present study is the first to address this issue in the context of language contact with Old Norse, assessing this contact influence in relation to both language-formal and semantico-cognitive factors. This empirical, functional account uses rigorous, innovative methodology, interdisciplinary evidence, and well-established models of synchronic variation in diachronic application to draw a fine-grained picture of the variation, change, and loss of gender from Old to Middle English and its underlying mainsprings. The resulting plausible and parsimonious explanations will prove relevant to students and scholars of historical linguistics, morpho-syntax, language variation and change, or language contact, to name but a few.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact written by Anthony P. Grant and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-10 with total page 788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every language has been influenced in some way by other languages. In many cases, this influence is reflected in words which have been absorbed from other languages as the names for newer items or ideas, such as perestroika, manga, or intifada (from Russian, Japanese, and Arabic respectively). In other cases, the influence of other languages goes deeper, and includes the addition of new sounds, grammatical forms, and idioms to the pre-existing language. For example, English's structure has been shaped in such a way by the effects of Norse, French, Latin, and Celtic--though English is not alone in its openness to these influences. Any features can potentially be transferred from one language to another if the sociolinguistic and structural circumstances allow for it. Further, new languages--pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages--can come into being as the result of language contact. In thirty-three chapters, The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact examines the various forms of contact-induced linguistic change and the levels of language which have provided instances of these influences. In addition, it provides accounts of how language contact has affected some twenty languages, spoken and signed, from all parts of the world. Chapters are written by experts and native-speakers from years of research and fieldwork. Ultimately, this Handbook provides an authoritative account of the possibilities and products of contact-induced linguistic change.
Download or read book Sign Language written by Jim G. Kyle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988-02-26 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery of the importance of sign language in the deaf community is very recent indeed. This book provides a study of the communication and culture of deaf people, and particularly of the deaf community in Britain. The authors' principal aim is to inform educators, psychologists, linguists and professionals working with deaf people about the rich language the deaf have developed for themselves - a language of movement and space, of the hands and of the eyes, of abstract communication as well as iconic story telling. The first chapters of the book discuss the history of sign language use, its social aspects and the issues surrounding the language acquisition of deaf children (BSL) follows, and the authors also consider how the signs come into existence, change over time and alter their meanings, and how BSL compares and contrasts with spoken languages and other signed languages. Subsequent chapters examine sign language learning from a psychological perspective and other cognitive issues. The book concludes with a consideration of the applications of sign language research, particularly in the contentious field of education. There is still much to be discovered about sign language and the deaf community, but the authors have succeeded in providing an extensive framework on which other researchers can build, from which professionals can develop a coherent practice for their work with deaf people, and from which hearing parents of deaf children can draw the confidence to understand their children's world.
Download or read book Agree to Agree written by Peter W. Smith and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agreement is a pervasive phenomenon across natural languages. Depending on one’s definition of what constitutes agreement, it is either found in virtually every natural language that we know of, or it is at least found in a great many. Either way, it seems to be a core part of the system that underpins our syntactic knowledge. Since the introduction of the operation of Agree in Chomsky (2000), agreement phenomena and the mechanism that underlies agreement have garnered a lot of attention in the Minimalist literature and have received different theoretical treatments at different stages. Since then, many different phenomena involving dependencies between elements in syntax, including movement or not, have been accounted for using Agree. The mechanism of Agree thus provides a powerful tool to model dependencies between syntactic elements far beyond φ-feature agreement. The articles collected in this volume further explore these topics and contribute to the ongoing debates surrounding agreement. The authors gathered in this book are internationally reknown experts in the field of Agreement.
Download or read book Language Contact and Contact Languages written by Peter Siemund and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new volume on language contact and contact languages presents cutting-edge research by distinguished scholars in the field as well as by highly talented newcomers. It has two principal aims: to analyze language contact from different perspectives notably those of language typology, diachronic linguistics, language acquisition and translation studies; and to describe, explain, and elaborate on universal constraints on language contact. The individual chapters offer systematic comparisons of a wealth of contact situations and the book as a whole makes a valuable contribution to deepening our understanding of contact-induced language change. With its broad approach, this work will be welcomed by scholars of many different persuasions.
Download or read book English as a Contact Language written by Daniel Schreier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent developments in contact linguistics suggest considerable overlap of branches such as historical linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, pidgin/creole linguistics, language acquisition, etc. This book highlights the complexity of contact-induced language change throughout the history of English by bringing together cutting-edge research from these fields. Special focus is on recent debates surrounding substratal influence in earlier forms of English (particularly Celtic influence in Old English), on language shift processes (the formation of Irish and overseas varieties) but also on dialects in contact, the contact origins of Standard English, the notion of new epicentres in World English, the role of children and adults in language change as well as transfer and language learning. With contributions from leading experts, the book offers fresh and exciting perspectives for research and is at the same time an up-to-date overview of the state of the art in the respective fields.
Download or read book The Handbook of Language Contact written by Raymond Hickey and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 1065 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of the definitive reference on contact studies and linguistic change—provides extensive new research and original case studies Language contact is a dynamic area of contemporary linguistic research that studies how language changes when speakers of different languages interact. Accessibly structured into three sections, The Handbook of Language Contact explores the role of contact studies within the field of linguistics, the value of contact studies for language change research, and the relevance of language contact for sociolinguistics. This authoritative volume presents original findings and fresh research directions from an international team of prominent experts. Thirty-seven specially-commissioned chapters cover a broad range of topics and case studies of contact from around the world. Now in its second edition, this valuable reference has been extensively updated with new chapters on topics including globalization, language acquisition, creolization, code-switching, and genetic classification. Fresh case studies examine Romance, Indo-European, African, Mayan, and many other languages in both the past and the present. Addressing the major issues in the field of language contact studies, this volume: Includes a representative sample of individual studies which re-evaluate the role of language contact in the broader context of language and society Offers 23 new chapters written by leading scholars Examines language contact in different societies, including many in Africa and Asia Provides a cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world The Handbook of Language Contact, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for researchers, scholars, and students involved in language contact, language variation and change, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language theory.
Download or read book Agreement in Natural Language written by Center for the Study of Language and Information (U.S.) and published by Center for the Study of Language (CSLI). This book was released on 1988-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although grammatical agreement or concord is widespread in human languages, linguistic theorists have generally treated agreement phenomena as secondary or even marginal. All the papers in this volume, however, take agreement phenomena seriously, as presenting either a general issue in theory construction or a descriptive problem in particular types of languages. The theoretical perspectives range from purportedly theory-neutral typological frameworks to assumptions about the validity of one or another current formal model. Further, the degree of generality ranges from a universalist nature-of-human-language agenda to concern with one or another aspect of grammatical agreement or with agreement in a single language or language group.
Download or read book Language Contact written by Yaron Matras and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most societies in today's world are multilingual. 'Language contact' occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence each other. This book is an introduction to the subject, covering individual and societal multilingualism, the acquisition of two or more languages from birth, second language acquisition in adulthood, language change, linguistic typology, language processing and the structure of the language faculty. It explains the effects of multilingualism on society and language policy, as well as the consequences that long-term bilingualism within communities can have for the structure of languages. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, the book provides a clear analysis of such phenomena as language convergence, grammatical borrowing, and mixed languages.
Download or read book Vernacular Universals and Language Contacts written by Markku Filppula and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-13 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Non-standard varieties of English all over the world share a striking number of grammatical features which are hard to explain because of the widely differing sociolinguistic and historical backgrounds of these varieties. Contributors to this book discuss two major factors behind the shared features: vernacular universals and contact-induced change.
Download or read book Creoles Contact and Language Change written by Geneviève Escure and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-10-13 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a selection of fifteen papers presented at three consecutive meetings of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, held in Washington, D.C. (January 2001); Coimbra, Portugal (June 2001); and San Francisco (January 2002). The fifteen articles offer a balanced sampling of creolists’ current research interests. All of the contributions address questions directly relevant to pidgin/creole studies and other contact languages. The majority of papers address issues of morphology or syntax. Some of the contributions make use of phonological analysis while others study language development from the point of view of acquisition. A few papers examine discourse strategies and style, or broader issues of social and ethnic identity. While this array of topics and perspectives is reflective of the diversity of the field, there is also much common ground in that all of the papers adduce solid data corpora to support their analyses. The range of languages analyzed spans the planet, as approximately twenty contact varieties are studied in this volume.
Download or read book Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary written by Anna Fenyvesi and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2005-06-09 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Communist times, it was impossible to do sociolinguistic work on Hungarian in contact with other languages. In the short period of time since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Hungarian sociolinguists have certainly done their very best to catch up. This volume brings together the fruits of their work, some of which was hitherto only available in Hungarian. The reader will find a wealth of information on many bilingual communities involving Hungarian as a minority language. The communities covered in the book are located in countries neighboring Hungary (Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Ukraine) as well as overseas (in Australia and the United States). Several of the chapters discuss material derived from the Sociolinguistics of Hungarian Outside Hungary project. Throughout the book, the emphasis is on how the language use of Hungarian minority speakers has been influenced by the majority or contact language, both on a sociolinguistic macro-level as well as on the micro-level. In the search for explanations, particular attention is given to typological aspects of language change under the conditions of language contact.
Download or read book Sociolinguistic Typology written by Peter Trudgill and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers how far social factors explain why human societies produce different kinds of language at different times and places and why some languages and dialects get simpler while others get more complex. It does so in the context of a wide range of languages and societies.
Download or read book Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas written by Cecelia Cutler and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas brings together the original research of nineteen leading scholars on language contact and pidgin/creole genesis. In recent decades, increasing attention has been paid to the role of historical, cultural and demographic factors in language contact situations. John Victor Singler’s body of work, a model of what such a research paradigm should look like, strikes a careful balance between sociohistorical and linguistic analysis. The case studies in this volume present investigations into the sociohistorical matrix of language contact and critical insights into the sociolinguistic consequences of language contact within Africa and the African Diaspora. Additionally, they contribute to ongoing debates about pidgin/creole genesis and language contact by examining and comparing analyses and linguistic outcomes of particular sociohistorical and cultural contexts, and considering less-studied factors such as speaker agency and identity in the emergence, nativization, and stabilization of contact varieties.
Download or read book Bilingualism and Deafness written by Carolina Plaza-Pust and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines sociolinguistic, educational and psycholinguistic factors that shape the path to sign bilingualism in deaf individuals and contributes to a better understanding of the specific characteristics of a type of bilingualism that is neither territorial nor commonly the result of parent-to-child transmission. The evolution of sign bilingualism at the individual level is discussed from a developmental linguistics perspective on the basis of a longitudinal investigation of deaf learners' bilingual acquisition of German sign language (DGS) and German. The case studies included in this volume offer unique insights into bilingual deaf learners’ sign language and written language productions, and the sophisticated nature of the bilingual competence they attain. Commonalities and differences between sign bilingual language development in deaf learners and language development in other language acquisition scenarios are identified on the basis of a dynamic model of change in the evolution of (learner) language, with a focus on the role of language contact in the organisation of multilingual knowledge and the scope of inter- and intra-individual variation in learner grammars. In many respects, as becomes apparent throughout the chapters of this work, sign bilingualism represents not only a challenge but also a resource. Given this cross-disciplinary perspective, the insights on bilingualism and deafness in this volume will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and professionals.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages Volume 2 Contexts written by Martin Maiden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the origin of the Romance languages and how did they evolve? When and how did they become different from Latin, and from each other? Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages offers fresh and original reflections on the principal questions and issues in the comparative external histories of the Romance languages. It is organised around the two key themes of influences and institutions, exploring the fundamental influence, of contact with and borrowing from, other languages (including Latin), and the cultural and institutional forces at work in the establishment of standard languages and norms of correctness. A perfect complement to the first volume, it offers an external history of the Romance languages combining data and theory to produce new and revealing perspectives on the shaping of the Romance languages.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact written by Salikoko Mufwene and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 850 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language contact - the linguistic and social outcomes of two or more languages coming into contact with each other - starts with the emergence of multilingual populations. Multilingualism involving plurilingualism can have various consequences beyond borrowing, interference, and code-mixing and -switching, including the emergence of lingua francas and new language varieties, as well as language endangerment and loss. Bringing together contributions from an international team of scholars, this Handbook - the second in a two-volume set - engages the reader with the manifold aspects of multilingualism and provides state-of-the-art research on the impact of population structure on language contact. It begins with an introduction that presents the history of the scholarship on the subject matter. The chapters then cover various processes and theoretical issues associated with multilingualism embedded in specific population structures worldwide as well as their outcomes. It is essential reading for anybody interested in how people behave linguistically in multilingual or multilectal settings.
